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FIDELIA 






















FIDELIA 


BY 

EDWIN I?ALMER 1 

Author of “A Wild Goose Chase,” 

“The Indian Drum,” (with Wm, MacHarg), etc. 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1924 


Ml 2 





Z. 


Copyright, 1923. 1924 

By EDWIN BALMER 


PRINTED IN TT. S. 

MAR 27 '24 



©C1A777694 &/ 







CONTENTS 


PART ONE 

CHAPTER pAQB 

I New Friends and Foes ...... 3 

II David. .*22 

III Alice.39 

IV Classes Together.. . 65 

V The Sun in the Classroom .... 79 

VI Troubling Questions.85 

VII Some Enlightenments.89 

VIII The Valley of Titans ...*.. 95 

IX “Mine, Mine!”.106 

X The Result of a Reply . . * . .115 

, XI A Bonfire and the Floe.120 

XII “No One Else Will Ever Do” . . . .130 

XIII The Throne of Saturn.136 

XIV The Return from the Throne . . .144 

XV First Consequences . . . . . . .161 

XVI The Bridal Camp.186 

XVII A Parlor Car to Itanaca.197 

XVIII “But and if Ye Suffer”.204 














CONTENTS 

PART TWO 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX Responsible to None. 218 

XX “Pleasure is the End!”.233 

XXI The Tie of the Past.249 

XXII The Threat op the Future .... 256 

XXIII How Father Herrick Struck .... 262 

XXIV Saturn Again in the Sky.265 

XXV Two Complete Their Purpose . . .275 

XXVI David Stays Away .293 

XXVII The Secret of Lakoon. 302 

XXVIII Illusion and the Truth. 317 

XXIX Of Use Again .327 

XXX “If She Comes Back!” .335 

XXXI An End to Pride. 345 

XXXII Happiness—and Fear. 350 

XXXIII Her Child .361 
















PART I 












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FIDELIA 


CHAPTER I 

NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 

F IDELIA NETLEY, at the age of twenty-three, 
was going again to college as another girl, who 
was lonely and who had been badly treated, 
would go home; for as long as Fidelia could remember, 
a school of one sort or another had been her home. 

Up to the year she was fifteen, there had been a 
house in White Falls, Iowa, which had been her place 
of residence, in a legal sense; at least, its street 
number always was recorded as her address on the 
register of the schools in which she had lived since 
she was seven. But Fidelia feared that house more 
than any other spot on earth; for it was the home of 
aunt Minna. 

She was the sister of Fidelia’s father and a widow 
with children of her own, older than Fidelia, and she 
frankly hated Fidelia for at least two outspoken 
reasons; one was because her brother had left his 
money, every penny of it, to his daughter in trust at 
the Drovers’ Bank; the other was Fidelia’s mother. 

In a vague, emotional way, Fidelia retained some 
recollections of her father. Of course she had a 
picture of him and so she maintained an image of 
his appearance; but she also had memory of having 


4 


FIDELIA 


been clasped in strong arms which held her in a 
particularly firm and gentle and agreeable way. She 
had no recollection at all of her mother, who had run 
off when Fidelia was an infant; and Fidelia never was 
told more of her mother than that fact; nor was she 
ever shown a picture of her mother. 

“I destroyed them all long ago/’ aunt Minna an¬ 
nounced, as of a good act well performed; but she 
added, “You are exactly like your mother. Your 
nose is precisely hers and your skin; and your hair 
is the identical color.” 

When she was a child, Fidelia used to look at her¬ 
self in a glass from every angle in endeavor to learn 
what was so especially wrong with her nose; but after 
a time, she came to understand that her trouble was 
that she was pretty and her nose was particularly 
tantalizing to some women; and her clear, soft, white 
and pink skin annoyed them and, more and more as 
she grew older, they seemed to resent the color and 
luxuriance of her hair which was red of deep, rich 
auburn hue. 

Since Mr. Jessop, of the Drovers’ Bank, allowed 
no attractive profit for boarding Fidelia, aunt Minna 
sent her away to school at the earliest age at which 
Miss Sumpter, in Des Moines, would take a girl. 
Fidelia found that school a pleasant, friendly place 
where she got into very little trouble; and she came 
to love the school so that she intentionally failed in 
her work, in her last year, for fear of having to return 
“home.” But aunt Minna had no idea of keeping 
her about merely from affection; so Fidelia went next 
to Mrs. Drummond’s school in St. Paul and was there 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


5 


when aunt Minna started the law suit to obtain con¬ 
trol of Fidelia’s money. Aunt Minna lost the suit 
and with it her guardianship of Fidelia’s person; con¬ 
sequently, Mr. Jessop was her guardian from that 
time and Fidelia began giving his house number as 
her home address. But Mrs. Jessop was one of those 
women whom Fidelia’s nose and skin and hair 
offended and she saw to it that, when Fidelia was not 
in school, she was safely away in a girls’ summer 
camp. 

After she became eighteen and had completed the 
course at Mrs. Drummond’s, Mrs. Jessop entered her 
at the University of Minnesota. She was a glorious 
flame of a girl brought for the first time into frequent 
and close association with men; she liked the Uni¬ 
versity immensely and stayed there two years, at the 
end of which she asked to be transferred to Leland 
Stanford University. 

As that was in California and further away, Mrs. 
Jessop agreed and supposed she had Fidelia settled 
there for two years; but at the end of one Fidelia had 
become of age and no longer needed to ask permis¬ 
sion to go where she pleased and to draw her own 
money; and so without explanation—at least with¬ 
out explanation which reached White Falls—she gave 
up college until this day of the second of February, in 
her twenty-third year, when she was passenger on a 
suburban train from Chicago bound for Evanston, 
Illinois, to enter Northwestern University. As cre¬ 
dentials, she carried certificates for her two years’ 
work at Minnesota and for one at Stanford; and she 
liked her feeling that she was again to continue the 


6 


FIDELIA 


gaining of' “credits.' 5 There was something par¬ 
ticularly satisfying in “marks, 55 anyway; they fur¬ 
nished one with such definite evidence of one’s success 
or failure 

Fidelia had lived by marks almost all her life and, 
by her conduct at school, she had been given or de¬ 
nied privileges. As she sat alone in her seat on the 
train, with her face toward the partly frosted window, 
she realized that she was returning to discipline; but 
it was of her own will and she was honestly impatient 
to return. She was seeking not discipline alone, of 
course, but also the ready, friendly familiarities and 
tolerances of college, the pleasant customs and rou¬ 
tines; she was eager to join again the rivalries and 
enthusiasms, to thrill to the ambitions and to share 
the companionships of the sort which had been hers. 

Once she had visited Chicago before this journey 
but she had never been to Evanston, though when she 
was at Minnesota she had heard a good deal of the 
college and town. She knew that the University was 
at the north end with the campus running along the 
shore of the lake; the students, men and women, lived 
in dormitories and fraternity and boarding houses 
about the campus, south, west and north. The sub¬ 
urban express from Chicago made several stops in 
Evanston and the third, Davis Street, was the station 
for the university. 

The conductor had told her this, upon her inquiry 
when he took up her ticket; and when the train 
neared Davis Street, he returned to her and reminded 
her that this was her stop, and he gallantly carried 
her suitcase to the platform. This was quite un- 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


7 


necessary for she was rather a large girl,-not heavy, 
but obviously strong and vital and excellently de¬ 
veloped; but men almost invariably chose her, out of 
any group, as the object of their attention. She was 
so accustomed to this that she really thought nothing 
of it, although she never forgot to express thanks, 
pleasantly. That perhaps was part of habit, to be 
pleasant. 

“Thank you so much!” she said now, when she 
took her suitcase on the station platform. No red-cap 
or porter for hand-baggage met the train at Evanston; 
and none of *the men leaving the cars were of the dis¬ 
position to press their services upon a strange girl 
so evidently competent to carry a small suitcase. She 
thought they were mostly business men, commuters 
from their offices in Chicago; but she recognized, in 
a few of the younger ones, the familiar casualness 
and clannishness of university students. They were 
of her own age and, seeing her, they eyed her as 
young men usually did and with the added interest 
of speculation on the probability of soon meeting her. 

“Co-ed?” said one to another. 

Fidelia did not hear him but she saw his lips 
move and she guessed, from her experience in co¬ 
educational universities, the term he would use. The 
boy who was questioned seemed doubtful about her; 
they all seemed doubtful but decidedly interested and 
they hung back in a group at the top of the stairs to 
let her precede them down to the street. 

She descended slowly, employing her free hand at 
gathering closer her coat, which was of soft mink 
furs; she had on brown gloves and a brown fur toque, 


8 


FIDELIA 


which matched her coat and was of a hue most effec¬ 
tive with her hair. She was conscious that she was 
being rated and that the moment was of great im¬ 
portance to her; and she made no error. 

Coming out upon the street where fine flakes of 
snow were blowing in the wind from the east, she 
glanced about at the opposite shop and restaurant 
windows already alight in the early dusk of this gray 
February afternoon and almost at once she nodded 
toward the first in a row of cars-for-hire waiting be¬ 
side the station. When the negro driver brought his 
car up, she said in a clear, agreeable voice: a Take 
me, please, to Mrs. Fansler’s. Do you know where 
it is?” 

“No’m; but git right in, ma’m. I find out quick. 
Up by de un’versity, you mean, or down in de town?” 

“Up by the university, I think,” Fidelia said but 
did not enter the cab, pending the driver’s gaining 
information whyjph he sought by yelling at the colored 
boy on the next car: “Zeb, you know whereall Mis’ 
Fansler’s?” 

“Pete you know the Delta A house,” a curt Cau¬ 
casian voice put in from behind. “Mrs. Fansler’s 
is on the same side of the street two doors beyond.” 

“Oh, thank you,” said Fidelia turning to the 
student, who had cleared up her difficulty as Pete 
made it plain that he was quite familiar with the lo¬ 
cation of Delta A. “Thank you so much!” 

She found herself speaking to the shortest of the 
three young men who were in a row on the walk, 
evidently having waited to see her away before they 
proceeded. He was rather a homely boy with a 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


9 


square, honest look and with a self-confidence of 
bearing which made Fidelia know that he was a leader 
of this particular three. “What he starts thinking 
about me, they’ll start thinking and they’ll start the 
other men,” Fidelia reckoned; and knowing the amaz¬ 
ing values of first impressions, she considered 
whether she would ask him for more information 
about the university neighborhood or whether she 
would do better with complete formality. She de¬ 
cided on the latter and got into the cab. 

It took her quickly through a narrow fringe of the 
one and two story shops and business buildings which 
flank the railroad on the university side, crossed a 
street car line and hurried her by a couple of blocks 
of residences and vacant lots toward a large, tall brick 
structure with many lighted windows which loomed 
far back from the streets in the center of a wide, 
level lawn. Fidelia recognized immediately the fa¬ 
miliar marks of a dormitory and of that particularly 
famous, old-fashioned, high-windowed", austere “hall” 
which was one of the first in the country to invite 
women to college with men. 

“Hello, old Willard!” she hailed it to herself, and 
turned to the newer, less obtrusive building opposite. 
“I suppose that’s Pearson Hall and Chapin is over 
there.” She knew the names of the main dormi¬ 
tories for girls. 

Her car passed them and hastened north and now, 
off to the right and beyond the intervening block of 
houses, lay the campus, she guessed; she did not 
think much about it. Here she was penetrating the 
most immediately significant section of the uni- 


10 


FIDELIA 


versity; some of the houses on both sides of this 
street were, possibly, the homes of families without 
intimate connection with the college; but most were 
surely the dwellings of professors and instructors or 
were fraternity houses and rooming houses for stu¬ 
dents. There were many large residences alight be¬ 
low and, more characteristically, aglow from the lights 
in ten or a dozen windows on the second and third 
floors of each. Here was the place where the students 
lived, Fidelia recognized—ten or twenty girls together 
in one house and as many men rooming in the next. 

They would prove to have come from everywhere 
and they would be no ordinary people; for each lighted 
window here must represent a separate and definite 
will and ambition of some one—at least of a parent 
or a brother or sister or friend for each some one up 
there on the other side of every window blind; each 
glow suggested a self-denial, a sacrifice and a deter¬ 
mination of the various sorts with which Fidelia had 
become familiar. They would be selected and priv¬ 
ileged people sent—or having come of their own will 
and by their own effort—from farms and little towns 
and cities in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, 
Nebraska and Michigan; from Ohio, Texas and 
Nevada; from Washington and from New York state 
and New England; from South America a few, un¬ 
doubtedly, and from Europe and even from China and 
Japan. 

Her glimpse of their many second and third-floor 
windows alight stirred Fidelia to a warm and excited 
impatience; it was more like coming home than she 
had supposed it could be. Here she was once more 





NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


11 


on familiar ground, though she had never seen this 
street before; here she was re-entering the company 
of lively, above-average men and girls who would hold 
certain difficult expectations of her, but of whom she 
could expect more than of others. She knew the 
name of not one girl or man here but she felt that she 
knew them; certainly she knew how they would act 
in regard to her, if she acted as she had before. She 
did not mean to do that. 

She passed a house with a transom above the front 
door displaying the triangle and capital A of the Delta 
Alpha fraternity; and the cab slowed. The second 
door beyond, which by information was Mrs. Fans- 
ler’s, was a large frame house painted some dull color 
which made the lower part appear somber in the fail¬ 
ing daylight; but the upper windows, like so many 
upper windows on this street, were glowing bright. 

Fidelia stepped out and paid her driver; she picked 
up her suitcase and went up the snowy steps to a dark 
porch where she felt for the bell. While she pressed 
it, she whispered a chant: 

“Fend a friend and kiss a foe, 

The first can strike the fouler blow; 

Never look the road you go; 

Travel on it; you will know.” 

She was giving no thought to the meaning of the 
words; she never really thought about them except 
as composing a sort of charm for good luck which she 
had picked up from a fortune teller years ago when 
she was a child in school at Des Moines. She had 
been told to repeat it whenever making a change and 




12 


FIDELIA 




especially when starting out with new people in a 
strange place and, having formed the habit, she kept 
it up. 

When she heard the door opening, she drew her¬ 
self more erect and gave a tug to her coat collar. She 
got a glimpse of a long, brown, rather bare hall and 
she was aware of the odors of meat and vegetables 
cooking; then she saw a middle-aged, slender, spec¬ 
tacled woman in a plain blue dress. 

“This is Mrs. Fansler’s?” Fidelia asked in her 
pleasant way. 

“I am Mrs. Fansler,” the woman said, in much 
more neutral tone but giving the impression that she 
meant to be more neutral than she succeeded in being. 

“How do you do? I’m Fidelia Netley from White 
Falls. Do you remember I wrote you for a room and 
asked you to telegraph if you could give me one and 
you were so nice as to do it?” 

“Come in, child,” invited Mrs. Fansler. 

It was the quickest melting of Mrs. Fansler on rec¬ 
ord, as was unanimously agreed by all four girls in 
the upper hall who were looking and listening to learn 
who had arrived in that cab. “Child” was Mrs. Fans¬ 
ler’s admission of approval of a girl; and the college 
record for thawing her to that point was three days, 
ten hours and some exactly estimated minutes. 
“Which record was absolutely smashed to practically 
nothing at all,” the witnesses deposed. “And from 
a flat, standing start!” 

Some girls abode under Mrs. Fansler’s roof through¬ 
out their college course and never achieved “child” 
at all. 






NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


13 


Of course Fidelia did not know this but simply dis¬ 
cerned that of the two sorts of women in the world— 
those whom her nose and skin and hair at once and 
unforgivably antagonized, and those who, upon sight, 
arrayed themselves as her defenders and friends—Mrs. 
Fansler was of the second. Mrs. Fansler talked to 
her for a few minutes in the parlor and then showed 
her to a room on the second floor. 

Two of the girls in the upper hall had the delicacy 
to retreat when the stranger ascended; but the other 
pair took a full, frank scrutiny of Fidelia Netley from 
White Falls. Fidelia looked at them, and with the 
same open, pleasant gaze, but she made not the same 
effect upon both; and she knew it. One was to be a 
girl for her to fend and the other a girl to kiss, if 
Fidelia put into practice the advice of her charm; 
for one girl, like Mrs. Fansler, showed without cause 
a sudden warm impulse to be her friend, while the 
other, at the same instant and from the same sight 
of her, betrayed as plain a sensation of hostility. 

So it was all to start again, the hot, violent liking 
and hating of her, the reckless and unreasonable deeds 
to be done for her, without her wish, and the amazing, 
reasonless abuse of her. Why, at sight of her and 
when she did nothing at all but exist, did some persons 
want to hate when others liked her? 

She stood in the center of her room, slowly turning 
while Mrs. Fansler bustled about unnecessarily dis¬ 
playing wholly obvious closets, the dresser and the 
chest of drawers. 

“It’s a lovely room/’ Fidelia said. “And that 
window is east, isn’t it? Really, isn’t it east?” 


14 


FIDELIA 


It was not a lovely room but was merely a plainly 
papered, almost square bed chamber with ordinary 
oak bed-room set of substantial design; and it was at 
the rear of the house. Every other girl who had 
taken it had commented upon this inescapable fact; 
no one had ever so enthusiastically approved it be¬ 
cause its window was east. 

“Yes, child,” said Mrs. Fansler. “It’s east. What 
beautiful hair you have!” 

Fidelia was taking off her toque without thinking 
either of what Mrs. Fansler or of what she, herself, 
was saying; for almost automatically she could notice 
such items as the east outlook of a room and comment 
upon such an advantage, repressing remark upon dis¬ 
advantages. What she was thinking about was the 
method of her first move in this new set of men and 
girls who were bound to take opposite sides over her— 
who, in fact, already had begun to divide in regard to 
her. 

She laid down her toque and slipped off her fur 
coat and stood in her brown tailored suit which dis¬ 
closed the rounded and well-proportioned fullness of 
her youthful figure. This presented a test of friend¬ 
ship which some women, who approved her nose and 
skin and hair, failed to pass; but Mrs. Fansler passed 
it and Fidelia felt on her blouse for a little jeweled 
clasp pin which was fastened there and she started 
to remove it. 

“Oh, you’re a Tau Gamma!” Mrs. Fansler ex¬ 
claimed, recognizing the pin as the emblem of a col¬ 
lege sorority. 

“Yes,” admitted Fidelia. “I was; at Minnesota.” 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 15 

“Oh, you’ve come from the University of Minne¬ 
sota.” 

Fidelia hesitated a minute and then said: “No. 
I’ve come from Leland Stanford.” Again she cor¬ 
rected, frankly, “I mean I went to Leland Stanford 
last. I’ve not been at college at all for a year and a 
half. I’m just starting again.” 

“Oh!” Mrs. Fansler considered. “You began at 
Minnesota and then went to Stanford.” She did not 
add, aloud, “and now you’re coming here.” But she 
might as well have said it. Yet neither her thought 
nor her quick glance over Fidelia was unfriendly. 
For Mrs. Fansler instinctively liked this girl; and, 
having been in charge of a student boarding house for 
girls throughout more than a generation, Mrs. Fansler 
rather prided herself upon the veracity of her instinct. 
She thought: “This girl hasn’t gotten along.” Then 
she thought, more definitely: “She’s got into trouble.” 

Mrs Fansler said aloud: “Surely you know Tau 
Gamma has a chapter here.” 

“Oh, yes; that’s why I’m taking this off before I see 
any one in college. I don’t think it right for a girl, 
who was initiated by one chapter to force herself on 
the girls of another college, who mightn’t want to take 
her in. Do you?” 

“Why, they’ll want you!” Mrs. Fansler exclaimed 
while she realized that she spoke the truth only in a 
limited way. For she knew that Tau Gamma—or 
any other group of girls in college—would want to 
own this girl in the sense that each sorority would 
prefer to possess her rather than give her to another. 
But Mrs. Fansler could not imagine Tau Gamma, or 


16 


FIDELIA 


any other group, unanimously welcoming this vivid, 
unusual girl. “You’ll like your chapter here,” Mrs. 
Fansler went on. “They’re the finest girls in college, 
Alice Sothron and Myra Taine. . . . Myra lived with 
me her first year; and I know nearly all of them. 
I’ll send word to Myra right away.” 

“Please don’t!” Fidelia begged. She dropped her 
little sparkling sorority pin into the drawer of the 
dresser and she clasped Mrs. Fansler’s thin wrist in 
her warm, caressing grasp. 

Mrs. Fansler liked it and a flush of color spread 
under her pale skin. “Why not, child?” she protested. 
“When you went from Minnesota to Stanford, you 
went to the Tau Gamma girls there, didn’t you?” 

“Yes,” Fidelia admitted. 

“Then why don’t you want to go to your girls here 
now?” 

Fidelia did not immediately answer but Mrs. Fans¬ 
ler felt the grasp on her wrist tighten suddenly be¬ 
fore Fidelia became conscious of it and took her hand 
away; and Mrs Fansler’s instinct much more de¬ 
finitely said: “She’s got into some trouble at Min¬ 
nesota but nothing serious. What really happened 
was after she shifted to Stanford, or later.” Mrs. 
Fansler hungered to know; she yearned for the con¬ 
fidence of this vital, beautiful person for the ma¬ 
ternal delight of counseling and protecting her. 

“This is different,” Fidelia replied, vaguely. 

“How different, child?” Mrs Fansler urged and she 
reviewed in her mind the note which had arrived for 
her the other day and which was the first herald of 
the coming of this girl to her house. She had thought 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


17 


of it, at the time, as a sudden, impulsive note, but put 
no significance to it. The postmark had been Port¬ 
land, Oregon, but the reply was to be sent to White 
Falls, Iowa. 

“I’ve been out of college for a while,” Fidelia said; 
and not immediately, but after a few moments, ex¬ 
plained. “I thought I’d travel a little so I went up 
to—Idaho and Oregon and Washington, our north¬ 
west. Then I thought I’d finish college and get my 
degree.” 

“I see,” Mrs. Fansler nodded; for she had become 
satisfied in her mind for the present. At least, she 
realized that she had learned a good deal and, if she 
was to learn more later, she must not press matters 
now. She thought: “She considered whether to say 
Idaho and then did it. She tells a part of anything 
freely. Her trouble was after she left Stanford.” 

Mrs. Fansler took one of Fidelia’s hands and 
pressed it. “You couldn’t have chosen a better place 
than here; and you couldn’t have come to a finer 
chapter. Of course I’ll tell your girls that you’re 
here.” She dropped Fidelia’s hand almost shyly and 
started out. “Supper at six thirty,” she said, practi¬ 
cally. 

Fidelia removed the coat of her suit and she lay 
on her bed with her hands clasped behind her head 
and with her legs bent over the side of the bed. She 
was not tired; on the contrary, she was exhilarated, 
jerking her legs up straight in a series of short kicks 
and dropping and jerking them straight again in the 
stimulation of the contest over her which was sure to 
continue. 


18 


FIDELIA 


“Two out of three!” she reckoned her friends 
against the one already antagonistic to her. Of 
course she was counting only Mrs. Fansler and the 
two girls whom she had seen and who had seen her 
here. The men, or at least a safe majority of them, 
would begin in favor of her; she could depend upon 
them; and as she considered the three who had 
watched her at the station, she thought of them 
reaching their fraternity houses and telling other men 
about her. There was no especial conceit in her 
thinking this, but only a recognition of fact; she knew 
that men kept her in mind and talked about her. 
Now she lay, not thinking but listening, for some one 
was speaking in the hall and she heard the words 
positively enunciated: “Take her your fraternity 
pictures; that’s what she’ll care to see!” A door 
closed hastily and there was silence during which Fi¬ 
delia became aware of a low, persistent sound much 
more steady and unvarying than the blowing of the 
wind. She arose curiously and went to the window, 
which she opened and she heard the sound much 
louder. 

“The ocean,” she said to herself and immediately 
recollected where she was. “It’s the lake, of course,” 
and she stood with the cold east wind blowing upon 
her, listening to the roar of the surf. 

The violence of it and the cold and storminess of 
the night appealed to her in her present mood of ex¬ 
hilaration. Already it was too dark for her to get a 
glimpse of the water, even if the intervening houses 
and trees and the configuration of the land back of 
Mrs. Fansler’s permitted a clear view eastward; but 


NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 19 

she could see that the lake was near for the vague 
illumination from houses and streets, which extended 
indefinitely north and south of her window, ceased 
abruptly to the east and there was a great void in 
which she imagined the tossing, roaring water; she 
had an impulse to go out and feel the full sweep of the 
wind and to stride along with all other sounds drowned 
in the roaring fury of the waves. When she felt like 
this, she exulted in the sensation of physical struggle 
and the trying of her strength; she liked the ecstasy 
of physical exhaustion. But she knew that this was 
no time for her to go out; for when she closed her 
window and again heard the house sounds, she dis¬ 
cerned Mrs. Fansler’s voice evidently speaking into 
the telephone: ‘^Yes, Myra; one of your chapter from 
Minnesota . . a remarkably fine appearing girl . . . 
No, she did not come direct from Minnesota; she’s 
been to Stanford and recently has been out of college 
for a while ...” 

Fidelia listened more tensely; and what she strained 
to hear was whether Mrs. Fansler repeated that Fi¬ 
delia Netley had gone to Idaho. Mrs. Fansler did 
not and Fidelia felt a certain relief. She wondered 
if she had made a mistake in saying so much to Mrs. 
Fansler; but she had to say something about that 
year and a half. She unpacked her suitcase slowly 
and looked about while she considered. 

Upon a bookshelf near the bed were a few volumes 
and pamphlets of the sort which accumulate in college 
rooms and which pass from occupant to occupant—an 
odd, battered copy of Cymbeline, the second volume 
of Bryce’s American Commonwealth, a Clark’s 


20 


FIDELIA 


Rhetoric without covers, an old college catalogue and 
a small, new paper-bound directory of Northwestern 
University. 

Fidelia picked this up and observing that it printed 
both the Evanston and the home addresses of 
students in course, she scanned the pages, stopping 
with a sharp jerk when her eyes fell on the word Idaho. 

Boise was the word before it and Boise, she knew, 
was far in the south of the state. She expelled the 
breath which she had been holding and she turned 
the next pages. Here was Idaho again; Jane Howe 
from Pocatello; well, that was far away in the south, 
too. Now Idaho once more and—Mondora! “Roy 
T. Wheen, Junior, college of Liberal Arts; Evanston 
address, Hatfield House. Home, Mondora, Idaho.” 

Fidelia dropped the book; there it was on the last 
page, when the census of students had run down into 
the Ws. A boy was here from Mondora. “Well,” 
she thought, “what if he is?” 

Not every one from Mondora would know her. If 
he were from Lakoon, that would be a more risky 
matter; but Mondora, after all, had been really out 
of it. There was only a chance, and really rather a 
small one, that Roy T. Wheen had seen her; she 
had no knowledge at all of him. Again she looked 
through the directory to make certain that she had 
missed no Idaho names; and when she was satisfied 
that there was no one in college from any place nearer 
Lakoon than Mondora, she decided to take the chance 
with Roy T. Wheen. 

Indeed, when she thought over the matter, his 
presence supplied an extra spice to this new adven- 



NEW FRIENDS AND FOES 


21 


ture which she could not help liking. At any rate, 
now that she had entered for it, she had no idea of run¬ 
ning away; already men and girls were talking about 
her; already her presence here had roused people to 
contest over her; and she meant to see this contest 
out. Behind one of these windows down this street 
or at some other lighted window which she had not 
yet seen, was some man yet unknown to her whose 
fate was bound to become entwined with hers in some 
new and unforeseeable way; she could count upon 
that, if she stayed here; and she decided to stay. So 
she closed the directory and tossed it away and lay 
on her bed, kicking her legs and wondering what 
there was to come to her from behind those lighted 
windows and what sort was he who would ride with 
her about the next turn of the wheel of her destiny. 


CHAPTER II 


DAVID 

W ITH the arrival of the three men who had 
seen her at the station, report of her had 
reached the Delta Alpha fraternity house; 
and, as she reckoned whenever men first spoke of 
her, this report was favorable. 

“Any of you loafers get a squint at the queen who 
came in a cab to Fansler’s a couple of minutes ago?” 
Bill Fraser enthusiastically challenged the group 
lounging before the fire in the living-room. 

“No; who was she?” somebody answered for the 
bunch; and as Bill’s tone suggested that it was worth 
while—or would have been worth while a couple of 
minutes ago—some of the fellows got up and looked 
out the window toward Mrs. Fansler’s. 

“She’s just about the greatest looker that I ever saw 
feeling the need of a college education,” Fraser en¬ 
thused, his vehemence increasing as he warmed him¬ 
self before the fire. 

“Where’d you meet her?” 

“Haven’t had the luck; just saw her step off train 
and call a cab. She’s up for the new semester, I 
suppose.” 

“Where’s her home town?” 

“Don’t know.” 

“What do you know about her, then? Whence the 
huge thrill?” 


22 


DAVID 


23 


“I’ve seen her, boy! Wait, just wait a little! 
Time will take care of you; after a while you’ll see 
her,” Fraser taunted in reply. 

Landon Blake, who was the short one of the three 
who had got the thrill at the station, did not go into 
the living-room with the others. Something more 
important was on his mind now. “Dave back in 
town?” he asked. 

“ ’Bout half an hour ago. He’s upstairs,” some¬ 
body informed and Blake ran up to the front room on 
the third floor and burst in on his roommate who was 
working under the light at the flat desk beside the 
window. 

“Dave!” hailed Landon, breathlessly. “How about 
it? Did you get it?” 

Dave, who was a tall, spare young man, turned 
quickly and looked at Landon; but he nodded in reply 
only after a moment or two and spoke slowly. “Yes; 
I got it, Lan,” he said, entirely without Landon’s 
excitement; indeed, he replied so soberly that it was 
almost as if he were giving bad news. 

“All of it?” Lan asked. “Or all you needed, 
anyway?” 

“All of it,” Dave confirmed. 

“The whole ten thousand?” 

“The whole ten thousand, Lan. I got it in a check 
from Mr. Fuller and paid it over down town this 
afternoon. Snelgrove put up his money. It’s a deal, 
Lan; it’s closed; it’s all over.” 

“Good!” Lan congratulated, putting out his short, 
broad hand. “Great! Dave, put it there!” 

Dave grasped Lan with his longer, strong hand. 


24 


FIDELIA 


“Thanks;” he said. “How was business here?” he 
asked, deliberately switching the subject from his con¬ 
cerns during the two days between semesters in which 
he had been home. “How’d it go with you, Lan?” 

“Business was a complete washout,” Lan con¬ 
fessed promptly and emphatically. “Or rather, I was. 
Dave, how in the devil do you put it over all the 
time?” 

“I don’t,” Dave denied, seriously. 

Lan laughed and dug in his pocket for cards con¬ 
cerned with this business to which Dave had trans¬ 
ferred attention. “Oh, no; it’s too darned bad about 
you. You don’t know anything about the auto game 
at all! You’ll simply step in to-morrow to see those 
guys that have been giving me the gate and have them 
eating out of your hand; or maybe you won’t bother 
to call; just phone ’em. Here’s your cards.” 

Lan tossed them on the desk and Dave turned and 
picked them up, thoughtfully, and bending slightly 
he opened a long, narrow box half full of such index 
cards; he put the returned ones in place and glanced 
over some others. 

“No,” said Lan, seeing this and stopping him. 
“No use to give me a crack at any more prospects, 
old top; I’m absolutely helpless and screaming for 
mercy when I try your game. If Myra has to wait 
for me to learn that before we’re married, I’ve a 
wonderful chance, haven’t I?” 

Dave closed his box without argument. “Plenty 
of money made in your game, Lan,” he reminded. 

“Maybe,” admitted Lan. “Four years from now, 


DAVID 25 

if Fm lucky, we’ll be married; that’ll be about four 
years after you.” 

Dave jerked his head quickly in a manner which 
made Lan reach directly into Dave’s affairs from 
which Dave had turned him. “How’d you find things 
at home?” he asked. 

“Oh, all right; about as usual.” 

“See your father?” 

“Of course.” 

“Have much more trouble with him, Dave?” 

“Yes,” said Dave, going rather pale. “Of course. 
I’ve sold my soul, you understand that!” he articu¬ 
lated slowly and distinctly and clenching his strong 
hands. “I’ve sold my soul to Mr. Fuller for ten 
thousand dollars. That’s the only way father can see 
it. I was bound to have a fight with him anyway be¬ 
fore going into last term here. He’s always held onto 
the idea, no matter what I said, that after college I 
was going on into Garrett Bib the way he did and be 
a minister. But he’ll never get me into the fix he’s 
in.” 

Dave stopped suddenly and swallowed with his 
emotion. “Lan, you know I’m not—undervaluing 
father. He’s the sincerest Christian I know, accord¬ 
ing to his own convictions. I’m not undervaluing the 
men who go on into Garrett Biblical to become 
preachers. They’ve got more guts than me, maybe; 
yes, I think they have. Father had more, anyway; 
but things were different in his day. He was here in 
the eighties of last century and this college, and the 
seminary, was in the hands of the Methodists who 


26 


FIDELIA 


brought God into this part of the country and who 
built up this place by faith and prayer. My hat is 
off to them; they did big things and believed. This 
part of the country, and Evanston particularly, was 
just about the center of faith then. Father used to 
meet Frances Willard on this street when she had the 
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union headquarters 
here. Father tells me with tears in his eyes how his 
professors, old Dr. Marcy and Robert Baird and Bon- 
bright, used to lead in the chapel. There were re¬ 
ligious enthusiasts running things then and they made 
fanatics; nearly half of father’s class went into the 
ministry or foreign missions or some kind of religious 
work. But our class isn’t doing it; we’re going into 
business. That’s as normal for me as going into the 
seminary was for father. I never wanted to be a 
preacher and I never came to college with that idea.” 

He was rehearsing, in his outburst of feeling, some 
of his fight with his father; and Lan realized this 
and kept still. 

“Father keeps on saying that Alice is the reason 
I’m going into business, that I’ve given up my ideals 
for the sake of making money to marry her and now 
I’ve gone into debt, borrowing money, so I can marry 
her sooner. But that’s not true. I meant to go into 
business long before I ever dreamed there was a girl 
like Alice.” 

After a few moments he admitted: “Of course I 
do want to get married.” 

“You’ve nothing on me there,” Lan said and this 
time spoke without thinking. 

“But you’re going on through medical school, Lan!” 


DAVID 


27 


Dave said, red color flushing over his pale face. 
“Father threw that up to me. You’ve the nerve and 
character to do it and Myra’s the character to want 
you to and wait for you. You know what I think of 
you both for it. But it’s different with Alice and me. 
You’re made to be a doctor and you want to be one; 
you’ve never wanted anything else. But I never was 
made for a minister. I was made for business; I’ve 
proved that, I think; and I’m going into business with 
ten thousand dollars put up for me by the closest judge 
of business propositions that I ever knew. And 
there’s no soul-selling to that. But you’d thought— 
you’d thought,” repeated Dave, drawing a deep breath 
and holding it a moment before he was able to speak, 
“when I’d taken it and told father, you’d thought I 
was Judas Iscariot.” 

His head jerked up stiffer and Lan saw the sinews 
of his neck stand out with his strain upon himself; 
his eyes went wet and he winked to clear them. 

“Alice is over at Willard for supper with Myra,” 
Lan said; he had to say something. 

Dave relaxed. “Yes; I know,” he acknowledged 
and Lan turned away and started to wash. Dave 
began taking off the old suit which he was wearing 
and which he had put on when he came to his room 
less than an hour ago. 

That careful habit of sparing his better suit, though 
no longer necessary to Dave Herrick, had been bred 
in him too deeply to cast it off merely because recently, 
if he wanted, he might buy himself with his own 
earned money as many suits of clothes as anybody in 
college. Clothes meant to him what they can mean 


28 


FIDELIA 


only to one who has known, too bitterly, what it is 
to be without a decent suit of one’s own. Dave knew; 
he was the oldest of six children of the Methodist 
minister of Itanaca, Illinois, and not until he came 
to Northwestern, when he was eighteen, had he worn 
a suit which was new and bought for himself. 

Of course he had earned money for clothes for him¬ 
self many times before that year; as long as he could 
remember he had earned, and sometimes he had been 
paid; but frequently not, either because his father 
had forbidden him to take dimes and nickels for 
services done and errands run “which he ought 
to be glad to do for friends” or because some neigh¬ 
bors too readily adopted his father’s attitude. His 
father, in the year when Dave first became cog¬ 
nizant of family finances, had a salary of eight hundred 
dollars. This year David Herrick, besides carrying 
full class work as a senior in the university, had 
earned twenty-nine hundred dollars, reckoned from 
January to January, and was liable for income tax on 
that amount with deductions legally allowed as head 
of a family with three children under eighteen. 

The family was his father’s; but Dave, having 
added seventeen hundred dollars to his father’s twelve, 
actually furnished their chief support. He earned the 
money selling motorcars to the customers listed on 
the cards in that box on his desk. His particular 
method of operations was his own and, as seemed to 
be indicated when somebody else like Lan Blake 
visited the trade, it required Dave,’ himself, to make 
it effective. 

He had what somebody in a philosophy course 


DAVID 


29 


called “a feeling of fundamental necessity” in his ef¬ 
forts which supplied him with a force lacking to Lan 
Blake, who had an allowance from home and wanted 
to work only for extra money. Now in his twenty- 
second year Dave Herrick, tall but rather light for 
his height, was a developed man, very strong and en¬ 
during and of the constitution described as hard 
physically, which had been formed by much hard, 
muscular work and by the almost complete absence 
of self-indulgences. He had clear, good features, 
nearly regular, with slight, tense lines of strain about 
his mouth; he had the habit of being under strain 
and it showed sometimes in his eyes, which were gray¬ 
ish blue and direct and, usually, positive. For that 
positiveness some people, men mostly, did not like 
his eyes; they did not understand that it came from 
his being obliged, when a little boy, to assert and stub¬ 
bornly stand by the practical against the fanatically 
spiritual, not only for the sake of himself but of his 
brothers and sisters and of his mother and father them¬ 
selves. But almost every one liked his eyes when he 
smiled for his smile banished those lines of strain and 
took from any overpositiveness; his was a pleasant, 
relaxing smile showing the even, perfect teeth of a 
boy brought up on hard, sparse fare. 

Two people—and Lan was one of them—knew him 
in moods which neither were positively practical nor 
relaxed, they were sudden, unsummoned times of 
violent self-reproach and penitence. For what, Lan 
could not guess at first; then he began to realize the 
cumulative effect of the unceasing drumming into a 
thoughtful boy, throughout his childhood and adole- 


30 


FIDELIA 


scence, of the doctrines of the essential sinfulness of 
all flesh and the need of self-negation and the stifling 
of natural appetites. Dave once helped Lan to under¬ 
stand by telling how, when he was a baby, he had been 
so sick that he was given up by the doctor and his 
parents prayed to God to spare their firstborn, 
promising God, for his life, that he should serve God 
as a missionary of his word. 

Dave referred to that now, as he and Lan were 
dressing. “The trouble, down at the bottom, is their 
pledge for me to God. They say I’ve got to redeem 
it.” 

Lan, having no helpful answer to make, attempted 
none and left Dave to his struggle with himself for 
having taken that ten thousand dollars from Mr. 
Fuller. 

He was a merchant, not a church member, who was 
the rich man of Itanaca; he never had any use for the 
preacher but much for the preacher’s son; and his 
ten thousand dollars, now taken, was a voluntary loan 
to start David Herrick as partner in the Chicago 
agency of the new Hamilton car which would be put 
on the market in June, after Dave’s graduation. 
Dave already had enough advance orders to insure his 
success, he believed; his plan, and Alice Sothron’s, 
was to be married late in June. 

There was never a chance of Lan saying anything 
wrong when reminding Dave of Alice so he mentioned 
her again: “I suppose you’re going to see Alice pretty 
soon.” 

“Hmhm,” said Dave, who was shaving. “I’m 
driving home with her after supper.” 


DAVID 


31 


“I can’t see Myra this eve; so tell Alice there’s a 
girl that maybe Tau Gamma wants to look over who 
came to Fansler’s to-night. Saw her on the train,” 
Lan explained. “A regular ripper, Dave; red hair 
and great looks.” 

“What’s her name?” Dave asked, with the mildest 
of interest. 

“Don’t know; just saw her and heard her ask for 
Fansler’s.” 

“All right,” said Dave and catalogued the infor¬ 
mation he was loyally to pass to Tau Gamma. “A 
great looker, red hair, at Mrs. Fansler’s. That all?” 

“You’d not say so if you saw her,” Lan rejoined. 
“Till you do, let it go at that.” 

They descended together when the gong beat the 
dinner hour. Fourteen members of the chapter lived 
at the fraternity house and this evening most of them 
were about the big table where the talk ran as usual 
when the “frat” was gathering again after the recess 
between semesters. A few of the fellows, who lived 
fairly near, had been home and they spoke about that;' 
they talked of the swimming team, indoor “track,” 
who had “flunks” from last term and, of course, they 
talked about girls. 

Some one facetiously elaborated on the manner in 
which a couple of co-ed juniors had “worked” a certain 
professor for marks; some one else seriously recom¬ 
mended a brother, who had just learned of a “flunk” 
in biology, to go to Myra Taine and borrow her note¬ 
book: “She’s the clever little picker of the salient 
points, old top. Packs all the essentials of two hours 
reading in a couple of paragraphs and never strains 


32 


FIDELIA 


the mind.” Some one else mildy kidded a sophomore 
about his evident shift of interest from a classmate 
to a blond girl from down state who was decidedly 
the stir of the freshman class. The chatter varied 
extraordinarily but never once suggested disrespect of 
any girl. These boys and men were so familiar with 
many girls that they mentioned them easily and freely 
and loyally, always. Loyalty to the girls was second 
only to loyalty to one another and not always second. 
Everybody at the table knew that Dave was engaged 
to Alice Sothron and Lan to Myra Taine; everybody 
knew both girls and liked them and nobody now 
“joshed” either of the brothers about their engage¬ 
ments. Delta Alpha accepted the fact of them as 
a basis for a sort of alliance with Tau Gamma; for 
when a fraternity is “rushing” a man for member¬ 
ship, a sorority often may lend invaluable influence; 
and so, of course, may a fraternity come to the as¬ 
sistance of a sorority. It was understood through¬ 
out the college that Tau Gamma and Delta Alpha 
worked together; and so, when Delta Alpha mentioned 
the new girl, whom three of the brothers had seen, 
they argued whether Tau Gamma would be able to 
“pledge” her; nobody doubted her entire desirability. 

“Dave, you tell Alice,” enjoined Bill Fraser (every¬ 
body knew that, as Alice was having supper at Wil¬ 
lard, Dave was taking her home) “to have Tau Gamma 
get awful busy and be sure to call on us for help 
whether they need it or not.” 

“They sure can count on you, Bill!” said the boy 
who had asked the source of the big thrill. 

“Freshman,” said Bill, “we have a few girls at this 


DAVID 


33 


institution of high or lower learning, as your tender 
eyes may possibly have observed and your keen little 
ears may, on occasion, have heard ^ they are beyond 
any doubt the finest girls in any college in this or any 
other country; far be it from me to nurture a knock 
at any one of them. However, I may say, with 
sufficient assurance, that something of an event oc¬ 
curred to-day. Some one in this college, not to say 
several, will never be the same after to-morrow.” 

“Men, you mean?” the freshman led him on. “Or 
girls?” 

“Both, freshmen,” assured Bill sententiously. 
“Both.” 

So Dave heard a good deal more of the red-haired 
girl; but, as his duty in regard to her was already in 
his mind, he paid no especial attention. To the usual 
query at the table: “How was everybody at home, 
Dave?” he gave the usual answer: “Fine, thanks.” 
But that fight with his father kept bothering him; 
and his taking and putting up that ten thousand dol¬ 
lars, irrevocably, kept cutting across other thoughts. 
He went to his room, as soon as dinner was finished, 
and checked over his figures on his desk. They were 
estimates, mostly, calculations and expectations of 
costs and interest and overhead and of sales and trans¬ 
actions yet to be made and commissions and profits 
yet to be earned; but they reassured him and he 
whistled confidently when he put on his overcoat to go 
out. 

He could go, now, to Alice; and this new overcoat 
of his—one he had bought in December and by far 
the best coat he had ever owned—brought to him one 


34 


FIDELIA 


of his dearest incidents with Alice. It was only a 
plainly tailored, well-fitted gray ulster but it had been 
made for him in Evanston and therefore cost more than 
was necessary for a ready-made coat which might have 
been as warm; so Dave still had his qualms of selfish¬ 
ness when he picked it up till he remembered how 
Alice had looked when she first saw him wearing it 
and how she had cried a little in her shy, gentle way. 
“Because I’m so glad, Davey!” she explained. “You 
just must get good things for yourself and not give 
everything away! My Davey!” she said again and 
suddenly kissed his hand which clumsily was holding 
hers. He liked her “Davey”; no one else called him 
Davey and no one else even knew that she did. 

What a right and natural next step for Alice and 
him to marry! he thought as he buttoned up his 
collar and went out into the snow. The storm which 
in the afternoon had started with a few, fine snow¬ 
flakes in the east wind, had increased to a heavy blow 
full of flying snow. Dave liked to feel it, he liked the 
obstacle of the drift under foot and liked the fury 
of the pelting swirl circling the street lamps and the 
sting of the wind and flakes on his face. Snow used 
to help him, supplying him with walks to clean, for 
which people almost always paid him; he thought 
about his boyhood’s backbreaking labor pleasantly 
now, it was so surely of his past. He had told Alice 
about it once; it was another event which had brought 
them so close together. 

He halted before Willard with its windows glowing 
yellow on the snow. There was Myra Taine’s room 
where Alice must be. Alice’s car was parked nearby 


DAVID 


35 


him at the curb; it was a coupe of beautiful coach- 
work and leather upholstery and with an expensive 
chassis; and the fact that he dealt in motorcars did 
not prevent him from feeling frequently an accentu¬ 
ation of the difference in worldly position between 
Alice and himself which her possession of this coupe 
evidenced. 

For Alice always had been one of the rich girls in 
the university; her home was one of the big, luxurious 
mansions near the north end of Sheridan Road in Chi¬ 
cago and, as worldly social privileges went, Alice had 
more of them than any other girl Dave Herrick knew; 
yet when he first came to college, three and a half years 
ago, and was struggling to support himself and when 
he possessed only his one decent suit of clothes, Alice 
had become his friend and, with her fine, dear disre¬ 
gard for what others thought, she had invited him to 
dances with her and insisted that he accompany her. 

The door of Willard opened and Dave turned about, 
eager and impatient as he saw two girls coming out. 
Then he was disappointed; for he discerned that 
neither of them was Alice. He recognized one, Nell 
Gould, a Tau Gamma, who likely enough had recently 
seen Alice; so he advanced toward them, confirming 
his impression that the girl with Nell was a stranger; 
and as he came closer, he appreciated that she was 
a decidedly unusual person. 

She was a larger girl than Nell, who was about 
Alice’s size; she was taller and more vigorously built 
and, though she had on a fur coat, he was aware that 
she had a fine, graceful figure, of rather full pro¬ 
portions; and she was supplied with a vitality which 


36 


FIDELIA 


expressed itself in no particular but which, at that 
instant, he could examine and it caused him to see 
Nell as colorless and somber beside her. She had per¬ 
sonality, this stranger; it spoke in the timbre of her 
low, pleasing voice which now reached him as she re¬ 
plied to some inaudible remark of Nell’s. Then he 
was near enough to see her face as Nell and she came 
under a light. 

She had red hair, he saw; and her eyes were 
beautiful; she was beautiful. 

“Hello, David,” Nell was saying. “Miss Netley, 
this is Mr. Herrick; Dave, Miss Netley, who’s just 
come here.” 

Dave pulled off his cap. “Oh, don’t do that, 
please!” Miss Netley protested, offering her hand. 

He pulled his cap on again; and jerked off his heavy 
glove and took her hand. She had on a light, smooth 
kid glove and he felt a firm, strong, agreeable grasp 
replying to his. Hers was an individual grasp; no 
one had ever clasped his hand in quite that way. He 
thought, as he gazed at her, “I’d know you anywhere 
again, if I just heard your voice. If we’d met in the 
dark, I’d know you the next time from your hand.” 

Aloud, he spoke an ordinary commonplace. 

She did not. “I’ve met Miss Sothron; I’ve just 
been with her, Mr. Herrick. She’s lovely,” Miss 
Netley said, drawing her hand from his. 

“Yes,” agreed Dave. “Of course I think so.” 

“Alice’ll be out in a couple of minutes, Dave,” said 
Nell Gould. “She stayed to speak with Myra.” 

“Thanks,” said Dave. 

Miss Netley nodded to him and he gazed at her 



DAVID 


37 


under the good light. “You’re at Mrs. Fansler’s,” 
he said, making it a statement rather than a question. 

“Yes.” 

She did not ask how he knew; he thought she 
would; most girls, surprised with information about 
themselves, wanted to talk about it; instead, she 
added: “It’s two doors beyond the Delta Alpha 
house; that’s how it’s known, it appears. I was help¬ 
less to find it until I learned that. Good night, Mr. 
Herrick.” 

But Dave turned to walk with her; he might as well, 
since he would be walking up and down anyway; and 
he wanted to know more about this unusual girl who 
had so suddenly appeared from nowhere. 

“You’re entering college, of course, Miss Netley.” 

“Oh, yes; but I’ve been to college before; three 
years, altogether.” 

“Where was that?” 

“Minnesota, first; then Stanford.” 

Dave was watching her face; for they were ap¬ 
proaching another street light and he wanted to see 
Miss Netley clearly again. She looked beautiful in 
the half shadow; the glint of the faraway light played 
on smooth surfaces of her face which gave her 
features character when Nell’s individuality was en¬ 
tirely lost; and as they came close to the street lamp, 
the pretty details and the coloring of Miss Netley 
became visible once more. 

He was going on beside her when the step at the 
curb reminded him that he had passed the corner 
beyond Willard. 

“I’m glad you’re trying us now,” he said, stopping. 




38 


FIDELIA 


She halted also. “Why, what did you mean by 
that, Mr. Herrick?” she asked him seriously. 

“Why,” he replied, surprised. “I don’t know; I 
just said it. I’m glad you’re here, I mean.” 

“That’s not what you said.” 

“No,” he admitted. “Good night, Miss Netley. 
I’ll see you to-morrow, I hope.” 

“I hope so, Mr. Herrick.” She turned quickly and 
with Nell went on, leaving him under the light. 

As he stood there, watching after her, again he ap¬ 
preciated the extraordinary aliveness and vitality of 
her which made her seem altogether another sort of 
person from Nell. He had hurt her, he realized, by 
that sudden remark about “trying us now.” In the 
reason for her change from Minnesota to Stanford 
and now to Northwestern, there was something which 
made her sensitive to his remark; he told himself 
that he should have guessed that there might be and 
as he watched her disappear down the street, he won¬ 
dered what her reason was. “She’s certainly un¬ 
usual,” he said aloud to himself. Then he turned to 
Willard and, thinking of Alice, found himself more 
stirred and more impatient for her to come out to 
him. 




CHAPTER III 


ALICE 


DIFFICULT and embarrassing bit of business, 



in connection with Fidelia Netley, was what 


Jk detained Alice with Myra up there in Myra’s 
room in Willard, which Nell Gould and Fidelia had 
just left. And the girls were unable to get to that 
business quickly; for after Fidelia closed the door 
on her departure, Alice and Myra gazed at each other 
in silence for several moments after Miss Netley’s 
definite, clicking tread had diminished down the hall¬ 
way. Both girls, for the instant, were holding breath; 
then Myra parted her lips with an audible gasp and 
laughed. 

“Tell me the exact truth, Alice; how does she make 
you feel?” 

“She’s one of the most beautiful girls I have ever 
seen,” Alice said in her quiet, considering and utterly 
honest way. 

“Of course she is; but that’s not how she makes 
you feel,” Myra rejoined. “A peacock’s perfectly 
stunning.” 

“She’s not like a peacock,” Alice put in, too quickly. 
“There’s lots to that girl, I know.” 

“No, you don’t; you just try to feel it because she’s 
a Tau Gamma and practically wished onto us whether 
we like it or not and you’re congenitally cursed with 
the determination to make the best of anything; then 


39 




40 


FIDELIA 


you try twice as hard because you know you don’t 
like her. You can’t help it, Alice.” 

“What?” 

“Not liking her. Now take me, for instance,” 
Myra went on. “I offer little to look at, the Lord 
knows; I’m short and plain . . . ” 

“You’re not!” 

“I adore you, darling, but we will stick to the un¬ 
flattering fact for the present crisis,” Myra retorted. 
“I am what is perfectly obvious. I’m not in Fidelia 
Netley’s class at all. I couldn^t possibly compete 
with her and come between her and any man she 
wanted. By the same token, she can’t come between 
me and Lan; for he isn’t after looks or he’d never 
have cared for me. Therefore I can’t have anything 
actually personal against her; but I hate her, Alice!” 

“No!” denied Alice, more emphatically for Myra’s 
hot vehemence. 

“I hate her; hate her,” Myra repeated, amazing 
herself with her own feeling. “I can’t tell you why 
but I suppose it’s because I’m afraid of her. I’m not 
afraid of her for myself, I just told you; so it can’t 
be personal. I reckon it’s generic fear—the sort of 
fear they talk about in biology. You fear an enemy 
if it’s the sort that has hurt or can hurt your kind 
whether it can really do anything to you or not. At 
moments I was almost amused to death, she was so 
frank and absolutely after just one thing. I never 
heard anybody quite so open as when she said to me, 
“My dear, which are the men you know?” I thought 
I would positively expire. But the men won’t!” 





ALICE 


41 


“Expire about her, you mean?” asked Alice. 

“No, dearest; in droves they’ll expire. They’ll 
breathe their last at her word. They won’t see any¬ 
thing amusing, I mean. At moments I was seized 
with the almost ungovernable impulse to borrow a 
bugle and rush to the roof of stanch old Willard and 
blow to college and town ‘save himself who can’; but 
no man would thank me. No one would trouble to 
save himself, if he could. They’re demons for that 
danger.” And Myra arose, shaking her small, plain 
self belligerently. 

“She needn’t be an enemy,” Alice asserted after a 
moment’s silence. 

“She? She can’t help it.” 

“Then, we shouldn’t hold it against her. I don’t 
like her, My,” Alice confessed. “But that’s mostly 
because I do feel afraid of her; and that’s silly, I 
suppose.” 

“Silly?” said Myra, the plain, staring at her 
dearest friend. “For you, it’s raving lunacy!” 

Alice flushed hotly and then brought Myra and 
herself to business. “We’re just thinking about our 
personal feelings, My, and not about her. She’s a 
Tau Gamma; she’s here now; she’s our ‘sister’!” 

Myrg, interrupted. “She’s not mine, or she 
wouldn’t be, if I’d had the vote on her. If Minne¬ 
sota hadn’t wished her into Tau Gamma, she’d never 
have got in here.” 

“But that makes no difference now; we’ve got to 
ask her to join us.” 

“Not right away,” Myra reminded. “We can’t, 




42 


FIDELIA 


even if we all wanted to. We’ve got to write Minne¬ 
sota and Stanford, first. Why didn’t she go back to 
them, when she decided to return to college? It 
looks queer to me, I tell you, Alice.” 

“Of course we’ll write the Minnesota chapter, and 
Stanford,” Alice said. She was the head of the local 
chapter. “But-” 

“But we’ll not find out anything against her, even 
if there is something,” Myra finished. “I know that. 
If Nell had trouble here and went to Stanford, would 
we tell? Of course not. So we’re stuck, as I see it; 
we’re going to have her and we might as well pretend 
to like it. All right, Allie; I’ll be good. I’ll give in.” 
And Myra went over and kissed Alice. 

She held Myra clasped for a moment and then got 
up. “I’d better be starting along now.” 

“You’d better stay here; it’s a fright of a night.” 

“David’s driving me home,” Alice reminded; and 
Myra made no more objection but helped Alice on 
with her coat and accompanied her to the front en¬ 
trance. 

David, waiting in the snow and feeling increased 
impatience to possess Alice, was becoming stirred to 
an emotional renewal of his rebellion against his father 
and the ideas to which he had been reared. His re¬ 
volt no longer turned on his taking Mr. Fuller’s ten 
thousand dollars but dwelt upon his father’s denial of 
David’s right to marry Alice how and when Alice and 
he pleased. He longed to have Alice in his arms and 
for the contact of his lips on hers and for the warmth 
of hers on his; he longed for physical possession of 
her; and he was not ashamed of it; nor, he resolved, 




ALICE 


43 

would he let himself again be ashamed of it nor would 
he fear natural desire because his father would call 
it sin. 

What a dismal, solemn rite his father would have 
marriage be! First, of course, he—David—should 
become a minister of God; he should be fired with 
zeal for doing God’s work. If then he found that he 
needed a wife and she could enter with all her soul 
into service of the Lord, he might marry. Paul, the 
great apostle, of course did not marry. “It is good 
for a man not to touch a woman,” wrote Paul to the 
Corinthians. Nevertheless, if a man were not strong 
enough in the spirit to subdue the flesh, “let every man 
have his own wife . . . for it is better to marry than 
to burn.” 

Dave knew all that scripture by heart; he knew it 
so well, indeed, that it came to his mind, as it was 
written, entirely without bidding and when, in fact, 
he would not have it. 

This said that to marry was to indulge a weakness 
of the flesh which—so Ephraim Herrick taught— 
might be redeemed if man and wife joined spiritually 
for God and if, as God blessed them, they bore children 
and brought them up to live righteously and in fear 
of the Lord. Thus Ephraim and Sarah Herrick had 
done. Thus they would have David do, at the right 
time. But now was not the right time for him to 
think of marriage and certainly not marriage with 
Alice Sothron, who was a worldly girl—oh, granted 
she was a generous, fond, unselfish girl—but she was 
a worldy girl for she did not know how to be anything 
else. She would make him a worldly wife; she was 


44 


FIDELIA 


precisely the sort the apostle Paul had in mind when, 
two thousand years ago, he preached: “He that is 
unmarried careth for the things that belong to the 
Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he that is 
married careth for the things that are of the world, 
how he may please his wife.” 

Ephraim Herrick considered this already proved 
in regard to Alice, who had taught his son to dance 
in the first year David was away from home, and 
with that wedge of sensuality had widened the breach j 
between father and son till now the world and the flesh 
were claiming him; he was selling his soul to borrow 
money to enter the race for riches, and denying his 
duty to God. 

“Dances! He’s still throwing up dances to me!” 
Dave ejaculated, in his review with himself of his 
father’s bigoted creed. It made no difference to his 
father that almost all the university danced in these 
days—and many professors as well as the girl and 
men students; nor did it alter his father’s view that 
the university, Methodist as it was, gave over its gym¬ 
nasium for dances where girls went decollete and boys 
put their arms about them and danced with them. 
Dancing now was something David could do without 
qualms of the right or wrong of it; but three years 
ago, that was not so. Suppose he had clung to the 
narrow interdict on dancing which had been drilled into 
him during his youth; what sort of a man would he be 
now? And was it not the clutch of other such pro¬ 
scriptions and senseless dreads which controlled him 
yet? 

He squared about to Willard impatiently. “Alice 





ALICE 45 

—why doesn’t she come?” Then he saw her in the 
lighted doorway. 

She was the taller of the two who now appeared 
there; for the other was Myra. Alice made a figure 
very familiar to him but not quite as he expected. 
She was less, in some way; he thought, “She’s tired.” 
He moved toward the door and she parted from Myra 
and came out; and as she saw him, she called to him 
in her eager, gentle way and she hurried to him. He 
quickened his step to her, feeling his heart leaping 
and pounding. She was not less to him now. 

“Oh, Davey!” she cried to him; and he caught her 
hands which she gave to him together. He held them 
tight between his own; that was safe enough there 
just out of the light; he wanted to kiss her; but that 
was not safe there. “Alice!” he said. “Oh, this is 
good!” 

“You’ve missed me, Davey?” 

“Never anything like it with me before.” 

“Nor with me,” she confessed. 

“Let’s get in the car.” And he led her to it, re¬ 
leasing one of her hands and holding the other. Then 
he had to relinquish that. So he got into the car and 
he took the driving seat and switched on the dash¬ 
board light to see the dials and starter; but as soon 
as he had the engine going, he let it run idle to warm 
and he switched off the light. 

She had merely waited, sitting quiet and close beside 
him. He had off his gloves and, feeling for her wrists, 
he found she had unbuttoned her gloves and stripped 
them off and he drew her slender, soft hands together 
again and brought them up to his lips, as he bent, 




46 FIDELIA 

and kissed them and then held her fingers against his 
cheek. 

“Glad to have me back?” he inquired of her. 

“Oh, Davey!” she whispered, gasping; and he felt 
her trembling and liked it. He liked her exclaiming, 
as she did in a moment, “You’re not cold at all but 
you’ve been waiting out there for me!” 

“That’s why I couldn’t get cold,” he said. 

“No; you’re so strong. And you got it, Davey! 
You got it!” 

She meant that “it”—that ten thousand dollars of 
Mr. Fuller’s—about which she had known ever since 
there was the first chance of getting it and about which 
he had telephoned her at Willard when he came out 
from town. 

“Yes,” he said. “I got it. And it’s put up with 
Snelgrove’s money. It’s a deal, Alice!” 

He had been about to take her in his arms. How 
lovely she was, how slender and gentle and what feel¬ 
ing for him she put in her soft, almost shy touches. 
He was feeling the loveliness of her hand on his cheek 
and he had been about to clasp her closer, but some¬ 
thing about that ten thousand, which she had 
mentioned, downed his impulse. 

They had made rules for themselves, Alice and 
David, long ago when they became “engaged”—rules 
to keep their love fine and pure, free from the cheapen¬ 
ing and debasement of many kisses and caresses. 
They might kiss on meeting, when alone, kiss before 
parting, of course; and at some other times; they 
might keep their hands in each other’s but other 
clasps must be feared. So, in spite of that five- 




ALICE 


47 


minute-ago defiance of fear of physical possession, 
Dave satisfied himself now with switching on the light 
again to see her face—the clear, dear line of her fore¬ 
head and nose, the soft dark brown of her hair and 
the blueness of her eyes always open to his. She had 
lovely eyes and so loyal looking—unswervingly loyal 
to him, indeed, ever since that day, long ago, when 
they rested on his in a way he would never forget and 
she said: “'We’re going to be good friends forever, 
aren’t we, you and I?” 

That made one of their marker days about which 
they liked often to speak and which often came to him 
when he suddenly looked down at her and found her 
gazing at him, as she was now, certain of herself be¬ 
ing his and wondering, in just this way, how wholly 
he was hers. 

“Hello,” he said to her, and smiled. 

“Hello,” she said; and he threw in the gear and 
sent the car forward. 

“Plenty of snow,” he remarked as the wheels 
slipped. “We’ll not be home in a hurry.” 

“I’m not in a hurry now, Davey.” 

“Nor I. But you were before?” 

“When I knew you would be down here and after 
I hadn’t seen you for two days! Of course! And 
you’d come early, I thought; you were here before you 
said you’d be, weren’t you?”' 

“Yes; for then I thought you’d come out early.” 

“Oh, Davy, I would have, but to-night—” she 
stopped. She had forgotten Fidelia Netley in her 
meeting with David. Now that she remembered the 
new girl, she thought how senseless had been her pang 


48 


FIDELIA 


of fear of Fidelia Netley and how senseless, also, was 
any fear of losing David to another. It arose—she 
always said to herself—from the fact that at the start 
she had David so much to herself; for at first hardly 
another girl in college had thought about the serious, 
self-conscious boy, so pitifully strange to amusements 
and luxuries, who had come to Evanston to attend 
classes while working. Not only had they left him 
to himself but some of them had been rather enter¬ 
tained by Alice’s “taking him up” and teaching him 
how to dance and “looking out for him.” Now no one 
in college was so competent to look out for himself 
and, also, look out for a girl; and now many girls ap¬ 
preciated him; there was not one, who knew him, that 
did not like to refer to her friendship with David Her¬ 
rick. Suppose he could come to care for one of them? 
“I haven’t got to suppose that,” Alice said to herself; 
and aloud she told him: “You see, a new Tau Gamma 
arrived to-night. She was initiated at our Minnesota 
chapter; we just heard about her and Myra had her in 
her room meeting some of our girls.” 

“I saw her,” said Dave and the image of that un¬ 
usual, vital girl, as she .first had appeared, rose in his 
mind. 

“You did? Where?” 

“In front of Willard. She came out with Nell 
Gould and Nell introduced me. I suppose she’s the 
one; a great looking girl; red hair. She’s staying at 
Fansler’s. But Nell didn’t tell me she was a Tau 
Gamma.” 

“Nell wouldn’t,” Alice said. “We haven’t asked her 



ALICE 


49 


to join our chapter yet. She told you she was stay¬ 
ing at Mrs. Fansler’s?” 

“No; I knew that/’ Dave replied. “I walked with 
her to the corner, Alice.” 

“Where did Nell go?” Alice asked, fluttering at a 
stab of that fear, that senseless fear which had been 
growing in these days when every girl now looked 
at Dave and wanted to know him. 

“Oh, she was along,” Dave responded and remem¬ 
bered how Nell had seemed lost in the half-light when 
he could still see Miss Netley’s face. 

Alice was questioning herself, how had he known 
that Fidelia Netley was staying at Mrs. Fansler’s? 
She knew it must have been mere chance; yet it 
frightened her that Fidelia Netley had met him at 
once. And he thought her “great looking” and had 
walked with her to the corner forgetting that he had 
walked also with Nell. 

“She was the one?” Dave asked. 

“Who?” 

“That girl; she’s the Tau Gamma?” 

“Yes. You—liked her?” 

Alice had not meant to add that; she had not meant 
to talk about Fidelia Netley any more; but the 
question pressed itself. At first Alice had dimissed it; 
then she realized, “I’m not asking that because I’m 
feeling afraid.” And she determined, “I won’t be 
afraid; I’ve no cause to be; I won’t.” 

“Why, I liked her,” Dave replied. “I certainly 
liked her. Unusual and pleasant, too, isn’t she?” 

This was no disloyalty, to say that he liked a new 




50 


FIDELIA 


sorority sister and to volunteer that she was pleasant. 

Alice agreed: “Yes, she was pleasant.” Then the 
demand forced itself out: “How did you know she 
was staying at Mrs. Fansler’s?” 

“Oh, some of the fellows saw her at the station 
and told her how to get there. They were talking 
about her at the house. Good she’s a Tau Gamma 
already or you’d have a fight for her on your hands, 
if you wanted her. Lan saw her and told me to tip 
you off to her; of course he didn’t know you had her 
already.” 

“We haven’t her really yet,” Alice corrected. “We 
have to write the chapter that initiated her, of course; 
then we have to vote to invite her to join us. Minne¬ 
sota initiated her.” 

Alice nearly added: “Then she went to Stanford.” 
But Alice did not; it would have been too near to sug¬ 
gesting something disagreeable to tell how Fidelia 
Netley had shifted about from college to college. Yet 
Alice could not help wanting Dave to know that per¬ 
haps everything was not so fair about this unusual 
girl whom he had found great looking and so pleasant. 
The next minute she was very glad she had not told 
him, for he said: 

“Yes; she mentioned she started at Minnesota and 
then went to Stanford. Her family move to Cali¬ 
fornia?” 

“No, she has no family—only an aunt who hates 
her and who kept her living in schools. The court 
took her from her aunt eight years ago and since then 
she’s been brought up by a bank. Tau Gamma has 
been the nearest thing to a family she’s ever known,” 


ALICE 


51 


Alice told quietly. That was only fair to Fidelia 
Netley to tell, though it visibly increased David's 
interest when Alice wanted so hard to stop it. 

“That’s hard luck. Then you’re taking her in, of 
course.” 

“Yes; I think so.” 

“What class’ll she be in? Ours?” 

“Partly in ours. She was junior at Leland Stan¬ 
ford.” 

“Where’s her home? I mean where's the bank 
that’s bringing her up?” 

“White Falls, Iowa.” 

“How’d she happen to shift here?” 

“Why, she was out of school for a while; and she 
got so lonely she thought she’d come back. She 
thought she’d try it here for she wanted some of our 
music work along with college.” 

“Netley; is that her name?” 

“Yes; Fidelia Netley.” 

“What?” 

“Fidelia,” Alice repeated the Christian name. 

“New one on me; altogether she’s a new one on 
me,” Dave repeated, giving his conscious attention 
again to the drifts. He felt more disturbed over hurt¬ 
ing Fidelia Netley by his quick, thoughtless remark. 
A girl brought up by an aunt who hated her and kept 
her living at schools, and then handed over to the 
guardianship of a bank, surely faced difficulties. He 
recalled how she had gazed at him under the light, how 
beautiful her face was and how well-developed was 
her figure. 

The keeping in mind of the beauty of a girl’s body 


52 


FIDELIA 


was what his father would call lust; and Dave, think¬ 
ing of this, forgot Fidelia Netley as recollection of his 
struggle with his father claimed his feelings. At the 
same moment, Alice mentioned his father with the 
purpose of taking their talk finally from Fidelia 
Netley. 

“How did you find your father, Davey?” 

“Alice, we had the worst time ever!” 

“Over the ten thousand dollars?” 

“Over everything! The ten thousand dollars 
simply touched off the other troubles; everything 
went, money and my plan to go into business and—” 
he stopped. 

“And to marry me,” Alice finished. 

“Yes; he tried again to break that up. Great 
chance he had.” 

“Davey, he feels worse about that—about me— 
than about your going into business; isn’t that true?” 

“No; yes; what if he does?” Defiantly Dave 
thrust an arm about Alice and pressed her close to 
him as he drove. Gone from her, also, was any fear, 
or any thought, of Fidelia Netley. She was happy. 
Not wholly happy; she never could be completely 
happy until David and she owned each other without 
right of any one to forbid them love. As it was, his 
father had a certain right, to forbid them; or perhaps 
it was not that. Perhaps, without having the right, 
he possessed rather a power to part them. So, though 
she no longer thought of Fidelia Netley, Alice quivered 
in her happiness as David held her and proclaimed: 

“I’m going to make money, Alice! I want to! 


ALICE 


53 


There’s nothing wrong about making money. But, 
by George, to hear father talk you’d say I was out 
for murder. It’s been all right for me to go out for 
money to put myself through Northwestern and to 
help at home; that’s been right because he’s kept on 
supposing that in the end I’d step into the ministry. 
But the ten thousand I took from Mr. Fuller has 
settled that, anyway. So much is over.” 

He snatched his arm from about her to pull at the 
wheel as the draw of the drift caused the wheel to op¬ 
pose him. When he had the drift beaten: 

“We’re going to make money, Alice! I’m going 
to have the agency for Hamilton cars—mighty good 
cars, with square, decent value in them and a fair 
profit on every job we sell. We’re going to pay back 
Mr. Fuller with interest and then bank some of our 
money so we’ll always have something back of us 
and earning a little for us, too. There’s nothing wrong 
in that; not even father could say so. We’re going 
to spend some on ourselves in living; and we’re going 
to live fairly well, I hope. We’re going to give away 
some more money. I couldn’t mention that to father; 
he’d think I was throwing it up to him and he wouldn’t 
take anything more from me—or let mother take it. 
But I’ll have the money for them and for ourselves. 
Not having money is—is—you’ve never known and 
you’ll never know, if I can help it, how horrible it is! 
But it’s horrible, horrible!” he said again, not meaning 
to but because he had to. 

“Davey!” was all Alice said; and he felt the firm, 
gentle clasp of her fingers on his forearm. He could 


54 


FIDELIA 


not look about to her and keep the wheels in the ruts 
of the snow but he understood she was making her 
gentle protest. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“It brought you to me, Davey.” 

“What did?” 

“Your not having money. Oh, I know it’s been 
horrible; I don’t like to think of it having been hor¬ 
rible for you. But Davey—Davey, how can I feel 
so about it when it brought me you?” 

“It wasn’t that, Alice,” he denied, almost impa¬ 
tiently. “We’d have got together anyway.” 

“Yes; we must have; we must have. But—” she 
squeezed his strong, tense forearm with all the power 
of her slender fingers and let him go. 

He swung the car about a corner and headed it 
east directly into the wind. They had come to the 
southern limit of Evanston where the road, which 
they had been following, turns to the very shore of 
the lake and clings to the edge of the water for the 
dark distance south past Calvary Cemetery to the be¬ 
ginning of the great north shore residence blocks of 
Chicago. 

It was a wild, lonely stretch of road that night with 
no other car in sight, with the roaring violence of the 
lake beyond the black void on the left and on the right, 
the dark, silent cemetery, snow-covered and storm- 
swept, and with gray, still monuments suddenly ap¬ 
pearing on the side as the headlights of the motorcar 
diffused a glow in the sweep of the whistling snow. 

“What does your father say about me?” Alice asked. 

Dave jerked his head but made no reply. 


ALICE 


55 

“He blames me for your taking the money from Mr 
Fuller?” 

“No!” Dave denied but halted the car. 

“Davey, I know!” 

“You don’t; you don’t understand at all. He 
doesn’t say anything against you as you , dear, he 
couldn’t; not possibly. He likes you—for one of 
your sort,” David added honestly. “He’s said you’re 
as lovely a worldly girl as could be. Oh, Alice!” 

“Go on! I knew of course he considers me just 
worldly.” 

“I want you to be! Why not? See here; to show 
how far father is from us, I’ll tell you one thing he 
said to me. He told me in plain words that my 
trouble was that I wanted to work for money to make 
you comfortable and to please you. That’s wrong, in 
his mind—for a man to work for things to please his 
wife. He ought to be pleasing God all the time; or 
I ought to. I won’t. I want to please you.” 

He went silent and Alice stayed very still. Then 
she said: “Doesn’t he work to please your mother, 
Davey?” 

“No; I never thought about that till yesterday; 
but it’s true. He’s consistent. That’s how he’s put 
his life over with mother and with himself; that’s how 
he’s had six children on a salary averaging a thousand 
dollars a year. He doesn’t think of pleasing her; she’s 
his partner in his game of forever pleasing God.” 

Again he stopped abruptly and then, at the sight 
of the monuments in the district of the dead beside 
him, he stirred almost savagely. 

“Eternity makes me tired. I’ve seen my father 




56 


FIDELIA 


lay up his treasures in Heaven until he’s blue in the 
face; and what good will they ever do him? I’m going 
to have a few of mine here.” 

He turned to Alice and took her in his arms, hug¬ 
ging her to him and kissing and kissing her. 

She yielded at first; then she resisted; not know¬ 
ingly, perhaps, and only a very little. He overcame 
that slight resistance and she offered no more but 
clung to him, holding to him, and her lips kissed his 
and his cheek. He kissed her lips, her forehead, her 
temples, her cheeks and her lips again; when his fury 
at last was going, he kissed her hands. Then he re¬ 
leased her and she sat back, disheveled and gasping 
and he sat back on his side, staring at her. 

“Shall we drive on now?” he challenged her. 

“No.” 

“We—we can’t do that again.” 

“No.” 

“I never saw your eyes so bright. You’re not 
sorry, Alice?” 

She caught a deep breath and repeated again her 
monosyllable, “No.” 

Now he would have more. “No, what?” 

“No, Davey.” 

“You hate me for that, Alice?” 

“Hate you!” she closed her eyes. “We never had 
anything like that before, dear.” 

“No.” 

“Not even at first, Davey, before we made our 
rules.” 

“No,” he said, almost resentfully now. “Why 






ALICE 


57 


didn’t we? Because we were afraid—or I was afraid 
and made you afraid! Afraid; afraid of everything 
right and natural and warm and alive because for¬ 
ever I was told to think of that!” he gestured with de¬ 
fiance to the still, gray stones of the graveyard. 
“What a crazy idea to believe you ought to be brought 
up for death instead of for life! Let’s get away from 
here.” 

Being in the driver’s seat, of course he was the one 
to do the getting away; and he put a foot on the clutch 
and a hand to the gear. “Kiss me,” he commanded 
her, leaning toward her before he started the car; she 
kissed him again and he drove away from the dark 
resting-ground of the dead to the avenue of lighted 
homes aglow through the snow. 

“The lust of the flesh,” the words of Paul so often 
repeated by his father ran in Dave’s brain and iter¬ 
ated themselves more emphatically the more he would 
smother them. “Ye shall not fulfill the lust of the 
flesh; for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” 

This amazing moment, which he had just taken, 
stirred what was called the lust of the flesh. “What 
of it?” David Herrick defied himself. He looked 
about to Alice who was sitting in her corner gazing 
at him and not saying a word. “Happy?” he de¬ 
manded of her. 

She waited a moment and then said, steadily: 
“More than I ever was in all my life, I think.” 

“You don’t know?” 

“Yes, I know—about me, Davey; but about you, 
I don’t.” 




58 


FIDELIA 


“Why not?” 

“Davey!” She clasped his wrist tight. “Can you 
—are you sure—can you?” 

“What?” 

“Marry me?” 

“I’ll show them!” 

“Them? Who?” 

“Father, I mean,” he corrected; but he meant Paul, 
too, and all the apostles of Eternity. Of course he 
did not tell her; yet she suspected at least a part. 

“But can you be happy, Davey? Oh, you know 
what I’m thinking of—your conscience, Davey, and ail 
the duties you make yourself do! Can we, Davey? 
Can we?” 

“Listen! Will you marry me, definitely—we’ll 
set the day right here and now—on the twenty-second 
of June? Is that all right with you?” 

“The twenty-second of June will be all right with 
me, Davey.” 

“Just £ all right’?” 

“Oh, my boy! my boy!” 

He swung the car to the curb and again stopped. 

After he once more grasped the wheel and gear¬ 
shift, he felt no relapse to guilt for his stirred sen¬ 
sation; he did not even try to down it; he gloried in 
it, thrusting his arm about Alice, gathering her against 
him and, when he drove into another drift, snatching 
at the wheel and struggling violently with the snow. 
So he'brought her to her home. 

Only after he had left her and was on the elevated 
train for Evanston did his new defiance of his father 
and of Paul, the apostle, and the company of saints 


ALICE 


59 


living with the Lord, begin to break with him. While 
he was in the lighted, warm car of the train and sur¬ 
rounded by the ordinary, worldly, somewhat sleepy 
people on their way to the suburbs from the city, he 
maintained most of his defiance; but when he left 
the train, he happened to be alone, and alone made 
his way through the snow down dark, quiet streets. 

He passed a row of small houses which lay between 
the tracks and the university neighborhood and he 
noticed one alight. While he approached it, the glare 
of motorcar headlights confronted him and an auto¬ 
mobile labored through the snow to the little house 
where a man with a small satchel hurriedly got out. 

“A doctor,” Dave said to himself; and he saw a 
man waiting in the open doorway of the house and 
holding to the door nervously and anxiously. Dave 
got a glimpse of a woman gazing out an upper window 
and from her posture of awe and dread, he imagined 
that a child in that house had been taken seriously 
ill. He stopped and stared up at the house and there 
came to him an image from a Sunday-school card, 
which he had been given when a little boy and which 
illustrated the text from Exodus: “I will pass through 
the land and will smite the firstborn.” 

It pictured the Angel of Death hovering over a 
house; and Dave, standing there in the dark and the 
snow, imagined the Angel above this house and wait¬ 
ing, whether to pass on or to strike, not upon any¬ 
thing the hurried little man with the satchel might 
do, but waiting upon something far more funda¬ 
mental than that. And suddenly Dave seemed to 
himself to be standing, not before this house, but be- 



60 


FIDELIA 


fore the cottage in which he was born and above 
which, when he was a baby, the Angel of Death had 
hovered, with the doctor helpless to send the angel 
away until the father and mother had prayed to God, 
promising God that their firstborn, if spared, would 
do his work. 

“Silly!” said Dave to himself, to get himself out 
of this; and he turned and went on; but as he walked 
alone down the silent, deserted street, fright seized 
him for his defiance of Eternity. 

He tried to shake it off by thinking of Alice and 
summoning to himself the sensation of her in his arms; 
but he could not. He failed to regain the sensation 
and, instead, he remembered that she, too, had been 
afraid not for herself but for him; and after he had 
declared to her his defiance of fear, she had doubted 
him. 

He had left the train at a station which was slightly 
north of the Delta Alpha house; and so, as he turned 
south, he came first to Mrs Fansler’s. 

“There’s where that girl lives,” he said to himself. 
“Fidelia Netley,” he repeated her name; and he looked 
up at the big house which was all dark now except for 
a night-light aglow in the halls. He wondered where, 
in the house, she was; and he wondered this without 
becoming aware of any real significance in his wonder¬ 
ing, although that was a strange thing for David Her¬ 
rick. For he knew many of the girls living in that 
house but never before had wondered in which portion 
any of them roomed. 

Likewise he failed to realize that it was when he 


ALICE 


61 


neared Mrs. Fansler’s and his thoughts went to Fi¬ 
delia Netley that his fears, stirred by the lighted cot¬ 
tage beside the tracks, had quieted. 

“Everybody’s asleep,” Dave said to himself; but he 
was not thinking about everybody in that house. 

As a matter of fact, Fidelia was not asleep but since 
her lighted window was at the rear, Dave did not 
notice it. She stayed up to all hours of the night, did 
Fidelia Netley, and without suffering either in energy 
or appearance for she possesed a marvelous fund of 
vitality which her sound sleep completely restored. 

She liked to half undress and thrust her bare feet 
into soft slippers and to let down her hair and, with 
her door locked on everybody, she would “do” her 
diary. 

She was doing that now; and her diary was no brief 
“line a day” but was a full and remarkably frank 
record of her important doings and, even more, of 
her important sensations of each day. 

Since this had proved an unusually critical and mo¬ 
mentous day, she had filled two pages with her hand¬ 
writing before she got into the chronicle of her ar¬ 
rival at Mrs. Fansler’s. She wrote: 

“I told Mrs. Fansler about Idaho; at least, I mentioned 
that I went there from Stanford. I don’t know why I told 
it. It seemed to slip out; but it did no harm. Any one can 
go to Idaho for any of a thousand reasons; and there’s no 
one here who would know anything about my visit there. A 
man from Mondora is in college, Roy Wheen. I never heard 
his name. But Mondora, how I can see it! The stores with 
their funny, second story false fronts and all needing paint; 
the white dust and the sun on the streets! 


62 


FIDELIA 


“I was riding to the right, I remember. We bought 
bread there and cartridges. I was happy; or I thought I 
was. Then we went on to Lakoon! 

“Probably this Roy Wheen was not even in Mondora 
when I was there; he would never know me. No one that 
I’ve seen has mentioned him at all. Hatfield house, where 
he lives, is not in fraternity circles. 

“Tau Gamma girls invited me to Willard after supper. 
Tau Gamma is certainly the sorority here, as I’d heard it was. 
Alice Sothron runs the chapter because she has the most 
money and can do entertaining and other things for the 
girls. She’s rich and generous and sweet; but that’s about 
all. She doesn’t, but I can make her, like me. She wants 
to be fair and she’s the one that will write to Minnesota and 
Stanford about me. Well, Minnesota will come through for 
me; Stanford, too. They’ll O. K. me and Alice Sothron will 
tell this chapter to take me in. 

“The man in college is David Herrick—everybody calls 
him Dave. He’s the sort of man I’ve sense enough now to 
appreciate. They say he was nobody at all when he came 
here four years ago but now everybody drags him into the 
conversation in some way. He was waiting for Alice 
Sothron when I came out of Willard. I liked his looks and 
the way he stood; I saw there was no mere boy but a man. 
We were introduced and he said, after I told him I’d been 
at Minnesota and Stanford, ‘now you’re trying us.’ Then 
he was sorry; and nice, I’m going to like him; hasn’t been 
about the world much but he has will and character. He’s 
innocent and strong. I like him now; I keep thinking about 
him. He’s certainly a contrast to S.” 

Fidelia wrote the initial but not the name and she 
stopped writing. She glanced over the page but her 
mind was not on it; for the last line she had written 
had turned her thought emotionally into the past. 

It went back beyond the date of the beginning of 


ALICE 


63 


this volume of her diary; for she closed this book and 
stepped to her trunk, which had been brought to her 
room after supper. Unlocking the trunk, she un¬ 
covered a set of twelve diary volumes which contained 
her self-record from the time she was ten years old. 
She touched the covers of several of the books but 
took out only one which was easily distinguished from 
the others by its scorched leather. 

The sight and feel of this charred binding increased 
Fidelia’s excitement, reminding her of two occasions 
when she had thrown it into a fire and then rescued it. 
She fingered the blackened edges for a moment be¬ 
fore turning to the pages dated, in that period after 
she left Stanford University. 

“Lakoon, Idaho,” she read at the top of an entry; 
then she forgot everything as she read, breathing 
deeply, her own record of her own doings and passions 
at that time and place, preserved for herself as she 
would remember it. 

Every time she took this book in her hands, she 
knew she ought to finish burning it; but every time 
she opened it, she knew why she had not destroyed 
it and why she never would. Nothing she could read 
elsewhere could compare with this; and when she said 
to herself that, if she destroyed the book, she would 
remember all, she found this was not so. How 
amazingly vivid the image and sensations restored by 
the written word! 

So she always kept the book near her, trusting to 
the excellent lock of her trunk. She was quivering 
when, at last, she ceased to read; quivering when she. 


64 


FIDELIA 


packed it down in place in her trunk, covered it and 
securely locked it in. Quivering she turned and 
stared away and, in her need to muster some new sen¬ 
sation to obliterate that of the past, she brought to 
her feelings the personality of the man whom to-night 
she had met and liked and who had interested her. 

“Dave Herrick!” she said his name aloud; and, re¬ 
peating it, she put her hand to her hair and began pre¬ 
paring for sleep to be ready for the meetings of to¬ 
morrow. 


CHAPTER IV 


CLASSES TOGETHER 


O the tinkling of her alarm clock which she 



had set to ring twenty minutes earlier than 


the other girls in the house were to be 


roused, Fidelia awoke and almost instantly arose and 
went to bathe. Upon hearing her in the hall, Mrs. 
Fansler looked out and gazed with admiration at the 
clear freshness of Fidelia’s face in the haggard glow 
of electric light at daybreak. 

“You’re early, child,” said Mrs. Fansler, pleased. 
She had supposed that Fidelia would be one to dally 
in bed and to rush down to breakfast at the last mo¬ 
ment. Mrs. Fansler had been prepared to indulge 
her somewhat. 

Fidelia would have liked often to lie abed in the 
morning but boarding-school had trained her, when 
she was little, to the advisability of always rising 
promptly and making as little trouble as possibe; so 
now she was bathed and again in her room and was 
dressing when the other alarm clocks began sounding. 

Each ring stirred a slight, agreeable excitement; 
she liked the feeling of “I’m back to it again” which 
the sounds quickened; she liked the familiar smell of 
second-grade coffee boiling and of eggs and bacon be¬ 
ing fried in quantities for the boarding-house break¬ 
fast. She listened for the sleepy and the crisp hellos 
and good mornings in the hall; for the generous offer, 


66 


FIDELIA 


“You go ahead; I’m in no hurry” and the grateful 
acceptance, “Oh, you dear, honestly, aren’t you? 
I’ve got to make an eight o’clock” and the rest of the 
chatter of the girls going to and from the bath. 

One tapped gently at her door. “Breakfast in ten 
minutes,” she called with friendly warning. 

“Oh, thank you!” Fidelia replied. “I’m nearly 
ready.” 

She was dressing slowly and carefully, giving par¬ 
ticular attention to her hair. She liked to dress for 
a definite purpose and as she gazed into the glass she 
thought of how David Herrick had viewed her under 
the light of the glaring street lamp last night. “He 
liked me,” she thought. As she brushed her glorious 
hair, she thought of him seeing its color by daylight 
and she thought of Alice Sothron arranging her soft, 
dark hair to please the same man. 

When the gong sounded, Fidelia descended to break¬ 
fast, neither the first nor the last of the fifteen girls 
in the dining-room. She had met them all at dinner 
last evening and she was aware that they had talked 
her over since that occasion; each girl knew whether 
or not she liked Fidelia Netley and probably most of 
them had verbally declared themselves. Fidelia 
felt conscious of friends here, foes there, as she re¬ 
plied to the girls’ good mornings. There were two 
tables in the dining-room and Fidelia’s place was at 
the larger, which was set for eight. Her neighbor on 
her left was the same as at dinner last night; but a 
girl named Edith Lacey, who had been next her on 
the right at dinner, now was two places away and a 
thin, intense, nervous girl, who wore glasses and whose 


CLASSES TOGETHER 67 

name was Dorothy Hess, had moved into Miss 
Lacey’s chair. 

“I asked Edith to change with me,” Dorothy 
whispered. “You and I will be in the same classes, 
you see.” And Dorothy took from the bowl of fruit 
the finest orange and laid it upon Fidelia’s plate. 

Fidelia warmed and she thanked Dorothy and cut 
the orange; she wanted to give it back but she real¬ 
ized she must accept it. Dorothy was the girl who 
had rapped at her door and Fidelia guessed that last 
night, in the discussion at this house over Fidelia 
Netley, this thin, intense, unattractive girl had come 
forward as her especial protector; and, probably, 
Edith Lacey had sided against her. Fidelia never 
knew why a girl like Dorothy Hess would suddenly, 
and without any reason, become fanatically her friend; 
but she knew that a girl like Dorothy always would. 
At every school which Fidelia had attended, this had 
been so. 

Dorothy was trembling a little with excitement and 
Fidelia wanted to clasp her thin, quivering hand; but 
instead she said: 

“Are you a senior? Why, you must be the young¬ 
est senior in college!” 

She brought a flush of pleasure to Dorothy’s pale 
cheek. 

“No, there’s a boy in our class who’s only eighteen,” 
Dorothy told modestly. “I’m nineteen this spring.” 

“She’s going through in three years; and she’s just 
about at the top of every course she takes,” a girl 
opposite put in. 

“Why!” said Fidelia. 


68 


FIDELIA 


“She’s got Phi Beta Kappa so cinched that it’s 
practically lying in her lap,” the other girl continued 
with a sharpness of emphasis just on the edge of a 
taunt. 

Fidelia did not feel this meant for her; and, indeed, 
the girl opposite glanced at Edith Lacey as she spoke. 
Fidelia discreetly kept silent; the others at the table 
were still for the moment for they were conscious of 
a delicate situation; and Fidelia could guess what it 
was. 

Miss Lacey, who evidently did not like Fidelia 
Netley, was a sorority girl; Dorothy Hess and the 
girl opposite were not. In this house of fourteen 
girls, besides Fidelia, there were eight who wore on 
their blouses the pin of one or another of the college 
sororities; six girls wore no emblem at all. The 
fourteen had been coming to these same tables three 
times a day, they had been rooming side by side and 
exchanging a dozen times a day the little courtesies 
which Fidelia had overheard that morning; yet if 
ever a house was set against itself, in secret bitterness 
and hidden soreness of soul, this house of fifteen girls 
was so divided. For here were eight marked by the 
gold and jeweled symbols of approval by their col- 
legemates; here were eight who bore on their blouses 
the proof that others had welcomed them at the uni¬ 
versity, had found them delightful and desirable and 
so had initiated them into the elect band who called 
each other “sister.” And here were six who, willingly 
or without their will, but by the mere fact of their 
presence in college, had offered themselves for this 
same approval and election, but who, having been seen 



CLASSES TOGETHER 


69 


by the select and having been met and talked -with, 
had been passed by as not wanted. 

Naturally it was easy for a delicate situation to 
arise between these groups; naturally the girls, who 
had been ignored, became sensitiye before the girls 
who had been preferred. Some of the more sensitive 
left college, Fidelia knew; some simply endured; but 
others, and often the frailest and most sensitive, 
“fought back.” And Fidelia understood that this was 
what Dorothy Hess was doing when she was over¬ 
working herself to stand at the top of every class. 
Disregarded by the sorority girls, she determined to 
prove herself as good or better than they; and, if she 
could not make them give her a sorority pin, she 
would win from them the prize of scholarship—the 
key of Phi Beta Kappa—with which the faculty 
decorated the honor students of the class. 

Fidelia appreciated that Miss Lacey coveted Phi 
Beta Kappa but probably would not get it, while 
Dorothy Hess was sure to; reference to that fact gave 
the opposite girl a certain satisfaction; yet it seemed 
to give Dorothy none. 

Fidelia felt impulsively for Dorothy and she clasped 
one of Dorothy’s thin, tense hands under the table. 

“What’s your major?” Fidelia asked, taking up the 
vernacular for discussing classwork which she had 
dropped the year and a half ago. 

“History; I love it.” 

“So do I,” said Fidelia. “Music and history are 
what I’m here for.” 

A sorority girl at the other end of the table smiled 
at nothing at all unless it was at this protestation of 




70 


FIDELIA 


Fidelia’s serious purpose at college; Miss Lacey also 
seemed to find something amusing; and Fidelia felt 
Dorothy’s fingers clasping her own more tightly. 
She began to realize that the girls, who most obviously 
did not like her, were all wearers of society pins and 
that her friends were among the other girls. 

She knew that they all had learned now that she was 
a Tau Gamma from Minnesota and also that last night 
the local Tau Gamma girls, who lived at Willard Hall, 
had had her “over.” She wondered how much more 
Edith Lacey, for instance, might know which Fidelia 
herself did not. Miss Lacey, though a member of a 
different sorority, appeared to be an intimate friend 
of several Tau Gammas. 

“I hear you met Myra Taine last night,” Miss 
Lacey commented. “She and I roomed together 
freshman year. I dropped into her room half an 
hour after you’d gone.” 

Fidelia took this remark as almost threatening. Of 
course she had seen that Myra Taine disliked her and 
she wondered if, after she had left Myra’s room, Tau 
Gamma had decided to turn thumbs down upon her 
and Myra Taine had hinted at this. 

Fidelia knew that the local Tau Gamma girls could 
refrain from inviting her to join them; but it was not 
at all probable; for it would put too great a stigma 
upon a girl. It would amount to saying, publicly, 
“Tau Gamma has met you and written about you to 
the other chapters which you joined; we’ve found 
something the matter and so refuse to take you in.” 

No, Fidelia thought; they would not do that; but 




CLASSES TOGETHER 


71 


they could. They could put her in a position more 
humiliating than Dorothy Hess’s; they could make 
her one who was not merely ignored, but who was 
outcast. 

She gazed out the window and saw several men 
on the snowy walks going to classes, undoubtedly; 
she forgot her apprehensions and finished breakfast 
cheerfully. 

Many men were on the walks when she left Mrs. 
Fansler’s door in company with Dorothy; and others 
were appearing from houses up and down the block, 
hailing one another and calling to girls through the 
fine, flickering snow which was in the air this morning. 

The wind of yesterday and of the night had ceased 
and the day was calm and mild under light gray 
clouds which sifted down this pleasant snow and 
which now and then let sudden, gleaming shafts of 
the sun slip through. 

Fidelia came out in her brown mink coat and toque 
with Dorothy beside her in a plain, blue cloth coat; 
and everybody who glanced their way, looked again. 

“They’re asking who you are,” Dorothy whispered 
in her excitement at appearing as companion to this 
beautiful person and she flushed as they came down 
to the walk. Fidelia did not flush at all; she was 
used to being stared at and could gaze back easily and 
impersonally. 

She did so now, into the eyes of boys, mostly. 
Some of these on the way to classes really were men, 
she saw; but no one here was like David Herrick. 

She had an extravagant idea, after meeting him so 


72 


FIDELIA 


quickly upon coming to this place, that perhaps it 
abounded in such men of unusual attractiveness; but 
here were boys and men of only the ordinary sorts. 

On the sidewalk, where the snow had been plowed 
away in a path hardly wide enough for two to walk 
together and for another person to pass, Dorothy 
lost her flush of importance; for the men, who were 
overtaking Fidelia and herself, began pushing by 
in single file, each peering at Fidelia. No one gave 
so much as a look at Dorothy Hess and no one spoke 
to her. 

Then the door of the Delta Alpha house opened 
and Fidelia, glancing up, saw on the porch the short 
man who had directed her at the station and who, as 
she now knew, was Myra Taine’s friend, Landon 
Blake. Two boys, probably freshmen, were with him 
and behind was the tall figure of David Herrick. 

Fidelia looked away immediately but not before she 
observed that David Herrick had seen her and had 
started forward impulsively and then stopped. 

Going on, with eyes ahead, she said to herself: 
“He wants to catch up with me but thinks he 
shouldn’t; but he wants to.” 

Fidelia’s pulses pricked with her instinct for flight; 
she wanted to hurry on to make him pursue, if he was 
to speak with her, but Dorothy detained her. Doro¬ 
thy, who was ignored by so many men, knew the 
prominent man of the college and she was determined 
to show it; so she held Fidelia by her fur sleeve. 

“There’s a friend of mine I want you to know,” and 
she faced Fidelia about to David Herrick. 

He approached, feeling self-conscious at immedi- 


CLASSES TOGETHER 


73 


ately finding Fidelia Netley this morning; for he had 
been thinking about her more than he liked. Of 
course he had been thinking much about Alice; 
he had been impatient, as never before, to have the 
hour for classes come because it would bring him 
Alice. But also he had been looking forward to see¬ 
ing Fidelia Netley. 

He called this mere curiosity because she inter¬ 
ested everybody so unusually. He said naturally he 
wanted to know why and he wanted to know more 
about her “as a person.” That was the way he 
phrased it to himself; he did not say, “as a girl” but 
“as a person.” 

The Delta Alphas had talked about her again at 
breakfast that morning. “That red-haired queen 
from Fansler’s sure stirred up a flurry at the Hall.” 
Dave had kept out of the conversation; he did not 
even mention that he had met her. The talk was 
wholly unobjectionable yet he did not like it. 

After he finished breakfast, he delayed in the front 
of the house and several times glanced out the window 
toward Mrs. Fansler’s; yet he denied to himself that 
he started from the house when he did because he 
had seen Fidelia Netley come out. Naturally he 
would be starting then; everybody was going to 
classes. But he could not deny the sensation which 
seized him when she looked up at him. 

She did not nod; some girls make it a rule never to 
speak to men on a fraternity house porch. Probably 
that was her reason, he thought. He liked that in 
Fidelia Netley, though Alice always spoke to him 
wherever she saw him. He did not mean to overtake 


74 


FIDELIA 


Miss Netley but Dorothy Hess forced it. Dorothy 
let Lan pass, though he spoke to her, and she let 
the two freshmen pass; then she hailed David by 
name and he took off his cap and advanced and shook 
hands with Dorothy in awkward formality. He was 
feeling that he was making something of a show of 
himself when Fidelia Netley spoke to him and ex¬ 
plained to Dorothy how she had met him last night. 
“But it was hardly for a moment/’ she added. 

Her way of saying this, which put far more im¬ 
portance on this meeting which Dorothy had arranged, 
pleased the plain, nervous girl who sidled to the out¬ 
side of the path, leaving Dave to walk next to Fidelia; 
and it banished Dave’s feeling that he had made a 
show of himself. He caught step with Fidelia Netley. 

“We’re giving you better weather this morning,” 
he started, tritely. 

She nodded. “Just right. I’m going to love this 
place. You do, particularly, of course.” 

“Why particularly?” Dave asked. 

“You’ve done so wonderfully well here; and your 
father was here before you. You must feel it es¬ 
pecially your college.” 

She said it with such warmth that Dave glowed 
with the feeling which she was so sure was in him. 
“Yes,” he admitted. 

“You probably never thought of leaving here after 
you started; but I—well, I seem to have been looking 
around, don’t I?” 

“What have you been looking for?” Dave asked 
quickly; and it was like last night when he said ab¬ 
ruptly, without thinking, “You’re trying us now.” 


CLASSES TOGETHER 


75 


He did not intentionally put such a personal question 
as that but, when he was with this girl, an impulse 
for the personal seemed to surprise him. He realized 
it; and told himself he must watch out for it. 

“What does any one look for, Mr. Herrick?” she 
returned. 

“Why, what she hasn’t got,” Dave replied prac¬ 
tically. “What didn’t you have, Miss Netley?” 

There he had done it again with her; and more 
baldly. 

“What you evidently found here,” Fidelia answered, 
“since you’ve stayed. But that answer doesn’t tell 
anything to you; for you’ve found so much—fame 
and riches and Miss Sothron.” 

Dave colored slightly, not because of her mention 
of Alice but because till that mention he had com¬ 
pletely forgotten Alice. He looked away from Fidelia 
Netley to the corner ahead where frequently he met 
Alice and where he expected to find her this morning; 
he did not see her and he gazed at Fidelia, catching 
her eyes for a brief, friendly glance. 

“I never heard so little called fame and fortune 
before, Miss Netley,” he objected, smiling; and she 
smiled and they agreed, in that glance, to let the 
argument go. 

“Miss Netley,” he called her; but to himself he 
thought: “Fidelia Netley.” 

He had not liked her name when Alice told it to 
him, but it had interested him; now he liked it. It 
seemed a particularly exuberant sort of name fitting 
to this most unusual girl. When she spoke, or when 
he did, she always looked at him but when she gazed 


76 


FIDELIA 


ahead or spoke to Dorothy, he took his chance to ob¬ 
serve the warm hue of her hair and the clear, agree¬ 
able glow of her smooth skin. He liked to watch the 
line of her profile with her pretty nose, not quite 
straight but with a slight, impulsive, attractive tilt; 
it was a nose which shortened, fascinatingly, when she 
laughed. He kept watching it and her lips which 
were full and soft and warm-looking and ever changing 
in expression. “She must have any amount of feel¬ 
ing,Dave said to himself and liked her for it; and 
he let himself appreciate the vigor of her body and 
her beauty of form. 

He could not help contrasting her, physically, with 
Dorothy Hess; every one else on the street was con¬ 
trasting them when they stared at Fidelia Netley and 
never glanced at Dorothy twice. He was different 
from being beside Miss Netley; he felt keener from 
a stimulation which was so definitely from her that 
he could not deny it. 

Also, he was feeling actively free this morning. Of 
course Fidelia Netley had nothing to do with that. 
He had brought it to himself by his final break with 
his father when he took his loan of ten thousand dol¬ 
lars from Mr. Fuller. 

Alice had a great deal to do with that. Again he 
looked for her as he approached the corner of Uni¬ 
versity Place; for she would probably come to college 
on the electric car this morning, when the streets were 
so heavy with snow. He saw that a car must have 
just let out some passengers for several people were 
hurrying from the direction of the car line toward the 


CLASSES TOGETHER 


77 


University. One girl walked alone more slowly and 
was purposely delaying. 

“That’s Alice!” Dave recognized her; then he de¬ 
nied, “No; that can’t be Alice.” But he saw that she 
was, and at this sight of her, with this disconcerting 
return of his sensation that she was somehow less, he 
remembered that it had seized him last night after 
he had been with Fidelia Netley. 

He did not like it; he would not have it. In a mo¬ 
ment, he did not have it for as he came close to the 
corner where she was standing and frankly waiting 
for him, his feeling for her flowed over. 

“Hello,” he hailed her. 

She nodded to him; she did not speak to him be¬ 
cause, at that instant, she could not; she was caught 
too tightly in the grip of her fear, that baseless fear 
of losing him sometime, which had become so much 
more definite since his meeting with Fidelia Netley. 
Here he was with Fidelia Netley again this morning. 
“It’s perfectly natural,” Alice argued with herself. 
“She came from two doors beyond Delta Alpha; they 
just happened to meet and so of course came on. 
There’s Dorothy Hess with them, too.” 

Fidelia spoke to her and she replied; then she spoke 
to Dorothy and last to David. “Good morning, 
David,” she said, looking up directly into his eyes 
where she found nothing but his feeling for her which 
had filled him again. It made her strong and con¬ 
fident. 

The plowed path on the walk was no wider there 
than up the street so if four were to walk together, 


78 


FIDELIA 


somebody must drop back. Dave was about to do 
this when Dorothy eliminated herself by suddenly 
calling after a girl in another group and hurrying 
ahead. “She’s some history notes I positively have to 
see,” Dorothy explained. 

Fidelia and Alice both started to the inside of the 
walk, each leaving to the other the place next to Dave. 
Alice went so far that she stepped into the deep snow 
and Fidelia helped her brush her skirt when she 
stepped back. They went on with Alice where 
Dorothy had been and Fidelia next to Dave. 

Many men and girls called to them as they came 
to the campus; for almost everybody in college knew 
either Alice or Dave. Everybody, without exception, 
looked at Fidelia Netley; and, when they looked, 
they contrasted her with Alice beside her. 

Dave felt that they were doing somewhat as they 
did when Dorothy was with Miss Netley; it was not 
that, but enough like it to make him angry. Speaking 
to Fidelia Netley, he looked from her to Alice. She 
was paler, less strong surely, less—alive. No; he 
would not say that. Alice was not less alive. Less 
something but not that! 

So, feeling dissatisfied and irritated over it, he went 
with the girls to class. 


CHAPTER V 


THE SUN IN THE CLASS-ROOM 

F IDELIA left Alice and Dave in the hallway of 
the big, tall, spired building known as “old 
University”; for she had business with the 
registrar before she could start classes. Alice and 
Dave went together into the lecture-room where 
Dave’s attention was soon turned to practical affairs; 
for this first lecture was on economics and the mention 
of money in large sums set him to thinking about that 
ten thousand dollars which he had borrowed to start 
himself in the automobile agency business. 

The lecture-room was large and pleasant, lighted 
by several tall windows; it had seats for about forty 
students and Dave had a chair in a position he usually 
chose, which was about half way back and near, but 
not on the edge of, the aisle separating the male and 
female members of the class. 

They might sit mixed together; occasionally they 
did for there was no rule enforcing the ethics of a 
Quaker meeting; there was merely a custom of 
separation. So Alice was on the opposite side of the 
aisle from Dave and her place was a couple of rows 
behind him; for she liked a position from which she 
could see him and she had a way of keeping him in 
sight without even her seatmates suspecting how 
frequently she gazed at him. 


80 


FIDELIA 


A class with him always made a delightful hour for 
Alice—a quiet, unhurried hour during which she 
would consider him with deep, dreaming satisfaction. 
Here he was near her but making no demand upon 
her. She liked to have him make demands; how 
would she ever live without his needing her? But 
how she liked these hours of nearness to him during 
which he would completely forget her in his absorp¬ 
tion in the work of the class. 

She did not mind that he forgot her, though she 
seldom completely lost her awareness of him; loving 
him, she loved his way of wholly absorbing himself 
with an idea. She realized that he ought to take the 
idea of economics seriously. She had no interest in 
it for itself; she learned, almost verbatim, important 
paragraphs of the text-book and so she was sure to 
“pass” creditably; but this was a course which she 
had entered because David was in it. 

This morning she watched him lose himself in 
speculation and she guessed that he was visualizing 
the progress of his ten thousand dollars through the 
hands of Mr. Snelgrove into the channels of manu¬ 
facturing and selling effort to which the professor was 
referring. Ordinarily she would have sat back, half 
listening, meditative, thoroughly content; but the 
usual peace and sense of security was gone from her. 

Gazing at David, she thought about Fidelia Netley 
and wondered if she was having any difficulty with the 
registrar. That was possible if, as Myra believed, 
Miss Netley had been in trouble elsewhere. How 
simple for her if Fidelia Netley would not be allowed 
in college! Then she felt how false and cowardly 


THE SUN IN THE CLASS-ROOM 


81 


was such a hope. She would not be afraid of Fidelia 
Netley! Yet she was more afraid since her walk to 
college with Miss Netley this morning when every¬ 
body had compared them and when David, looking at 
her past Fidelia Netley, had been disappointed in her. 
He had not wanted to be but he was! Oh, she had 
felt that! 

How strange that he could forget it and absorb 
himself in what a lecturer was saying about the law 
of joint cost. But there David was, listening, making 
notes, buried in economics as though nothing had hap¬ 
pened, while she was waiting for the end of the hour 
to know whether her world was, after all, to go on as 
before or whether everything would be changed for 
her now. 

The bell, and the ending of the lecture, brought 
David back from costs and factors of production. He 
slipped his note-book into his pocket and stood up, 
glancing toward the girls and waiting, as the men 
usually did, for the girls to go first from the class. 
The opened door let in the chatter and bustle of the 
hall. 

Ten minutes were allowed for changing classes, and 
for going from building to building; so the students 
whose next lecture was under the same roof, had 
liberal time to visit in the hall. On the first floor of 
“old University,” there was much passing to and 
fro and there the most popular girls—and sometimes 
the men after a football victory or a class election— 
held impromptu levee. 

A girl was the center of the group now near the 
bulletin board and Alice knew that girl, without 



82 


FIDELIA 


having to look over the heads of others. The college 
was meeting Fidelia Netley. 

Some one, seizing David, was trying to work him 
into the crowd. “Oh, I know Miss Netley,” he said; 
and he called to her, over the heads, “Fixed up your 
registration all right?” 

“Oh, finely, thanks,” Fidelia Netley’s voice replied. 

So that was settled. 

Alice went off to another building for her nine 
o’clock lecture, which was in a course Dave did not 
take. Her ten o’clock class also was different from 
his, but eleven, the hour of the last class of the morn¬ 
ing, was a time of their meeting again. 

As she returned to old University for this class, 
she was sure that she would find Fidelia Netley in 
it, and there she was when Alice and Dave entered the 
class-room together. 

The windows in this room were to the south and, 
as the clouds which had been rift all morning, now 
had cleared away, the sun was shining in, yellow and 
warm. The bright shafts of light gave a comfortable 
and cozy air to the room, which was not large; and 
only ten girls and a few more men entered for this 
class. 

Fidelia was sitting by herself in a seat just on the 
edge of a shaft of the sun. It touched her shoulder 
when she leaned to her left and suddenly set her hair 
gloriously aglow under her small toque of mink. 
Alice almost gasped when she saw her. 

Alice wanted to say to herself that Fidelia had 
placed herself there with forethought and purpose; 
but Alice honestly could not feel that. What she felt 


THE SUN IN THE CLASS-ROOM 


83 


was something far more dismaying to her; it was the 
sense of natural instinct which this girl had for the 
sun and which drew her there to the edge of the light 
as a flower would have been turned or a young, wild 
animal enticed by the warmth and the light. 

Alice looked up at David who was gazing at Fidelia 
Netley. Of course he was! Alice did not speak; 
she did not want him to look from Fidelia to her; she 
could not bear to see the change which would come in 
his face. 

She slipped away and realized that, if she went to 
her usual seat, she would be beside that girl on the 
edge of the sun. Alice started elsewhere; then, 
flushing, she went to her own seat. 

“This is fine,” Fidelia welcomed her and gave a 
warm, firm hand. She had taken off her coat and the 
jacket of her suit was unbuttoned; for it was hot in 
the room. 

Myra came in and sat down beside Alice, while Lan 
took a seat near Dave. At the start of the lecture, 
Fidelia opened a new note-book, pulled a silver pencil 
on a ribbon from her bosom and bent slightly, her 
hair sometimes in the shadow, sometimes in the sun. 
Myra began taking notes, also. Alice did not but 
watched Fidelia’s and Myra’s hands while they wrote. 
Myra had a small, practical-looking hand which wrote 
in clear, plain characters; Fidelia’s hands were longer, 
slender and strong, with beautifully shaped nails. 
Alice could find no blemish on those hands. Physi¬ 
cally, this girl was as nearly perfect as any one Alice 
had ever seen; and with her beauty went her exuber¬ 
ance of life, her instinct for the sun. 



84 


FIDELIA 


The lecture was not like any other. How could it 
be? The lecturer was human and had to glance again 
and again toward that glory on the edge of the sun¬ 
light which was a girl slightly bent over while she 
wrote his words. The boys on the other side of the 
room looked toward the sunlight often. Lan did and 
so did David. And to Alice, at least, there was a 
difference in their glance. When Lan looked at 
Fidelia Netley, Myra was not disturbed at all; he 
used often to look over at the girls. But when David 
looked, Alice went weak; usually in this class, as in 
the other, Dave never gazed toward the girls. 


CHAPTER VI 


G 


TROUBLING QUESTIONS 

OING to chapel to-day ?” David asked Alice, 
when they came out. 

“No, thanks. I think I’ll go right home.” 

He walked to the car line with her alone, except 
that other couples were a few steps ahead of them 
and still others were behind. They talked to each 
other as usual but each was conscious of an effort to 
do so. They waited, silently, for a car and when it 
stopped Dave held Alice back after others got aboard. 
“Wait for the next car,” he begged. 

“Why?” she asked but she stepped away with him. 

“Alice, you’re feeling bad about something.” 

“I’m not ... I mean, if I am, so are you.” 

“I’m not,” he denied. 

The car had gone on, having taken everybody else 
from the corner. 

“We’re stupid standing here, David,” she said; 
then, “Davey.” Her eyes blurred. 

He seized her arm. “Let’s walk. After last night, 
we shouldn’t ever have trouble.” 

“No, we shouldn’t.” 

“What have I done, Alice?” 

She did not answer. 

“What have I done?” he repeated; then he ap¬ 
pealed: “I wish I could talk to you. I wish we could 
8s 


86 


FIDELIA 


be like last night again, Alice. But I’ve got to go 
down town. I’ve got to see Snelgrove about our 
business, dear.” 

He clasped her arm tight. “There’s nothing the 
matter between you and me, Alice,” he denied. 
“There can’t be.” 

She looked up at him, her eyes ablur. “No; there 
can’t be, Davey,” she cried. “There can’t be. . . . 
Here’s another car.” 

He stopped it and helped her on to it, and he 
watched it away with a pang of his usual feeling. But 
when he was walking alone to the railroad station to 
take a train to Chicago, he wondered where Fidelia 
Netley was. 

Fidelia just then was at chapel. She liked chapel 
for the verve of many people meeting and for the 
singing. She was accustomed to going to church and 
chapel for, besides being agreeable, it helped her with 
people. She knew scores of hymns by heart and she 
sang with.a clear, vibrant soprano, and without having 
to look at the book which she held: 

“He leadeth me, He leadeth me; 

By his own hand, He leadeth me. 

His faithful follower I would be; 

For by his hand, He leadeth me.” 

She repeated the Lord’s prayer aloud and with per¬ 
fect rhythm in her words. She liked the formal 
prayers, for their beauty of rhythm, almost as much 
as she liked the hymns. 

On her way out from chapel, she met several more 


TROUBLING QUESTIONS 87 

girls and men; and several others hovered on the edges 
of the group without coming close. 

She began to notice a boy of about twenty who first 
was on her right and then was on her left and now 
had moved again as though circling to have a look at 
her from every side. He was a serious person, wear¬ 
ing steel-rimmed spectacles; his ready-made gray suit 
and coat were of good enough material but they had 
not been pressed recently. 

Evidently he was a careless, or at least an absent- 
minded,boy, untidy in his studiousness. 

Fidelia grew uneasy under his peculiarly persistent 
observation; she saw him once speak to Dorothy Hess 
and ask a question and then peer at her again. When 
he vanished, she had the feeling that he was watching 
her from behind. 

She walked home with Dorothy and another girl 
from Mrs. Fansler’s; and she waited until Dorothy 
and she were alone in the upper hall at the boarding¬ 
house before she asked Dorothy: 

“Who was that man with steel-rimmed glasses who 
spoke to you after chapel ?” 

“Why, that was Roy Wheen!” Dorothy said with 
evident surprise that Fidelia found any interest in him. 
“Why?” 

Fidelia stiffened and waited a moment to be able to 
reply casually: “I wondered if I ought to know him.” 

“Why,” said Dorothy, “he asked me your name and 
where you came from.” 

“What did you tell him?” 

“Why, your name and that you were from Stan¬ 
ford.” 


O 





88 


FIDELIA 


“Yes,” said Fidelia and quickly changed the sub¬ 
ject, getting Dorothy to think of something else be¬ 
fore she went into her room. 

Fidelia closed her own door and held to the knob. 
“He was in Mondora then,” she whispered to her¬ 
self. “He saw me. But he’s not sure of me.” 


C 


CHAPTER VII 


SOME ENLIGHTENMENTS 

D AVE went to Chicago and spent an enlighten¬ 
ing afternoon, as an afternoon following the 
forming of a first partnership is likely to be; 
for now he had his money up with Snelgrove; there 
was no getting it back; and his partner acquainted 
him cheerily and familiarly with certain little diffi¬ 
culties which had not been mentioned before. 

Mr. Snelgrove was an optimistic gentleman and pro¬ 
found from personal experience in the automobile 
“game,” as he always called it. He had been in the 
game “practically since the first whistle blew,” or 
since nineteen three, when he gave up a bicycle agency 
and repair shop on the south side “to put out the 
crack car of the day.” 

He liked to relate both his triumphs and disasters 
impartially. 

“Just snatched small change at first. If a man sold 
a dozen two thousand dollar 'jobs/ they put his pic¬ 
ture in the paper those days. Then the public be¬ 
gan riding and the big money began to run. I got 
my big sales-room down on Michigan Avenue, one of 
the first on the row, and in nineteen nine wired my 
factory the biggest order the Western Union ever took 
out of Chicago for cars in our price class. In nine¬ 
teen ten I just exactly doubled that order, sent my 
check with the order to pay deposit on the shipment 
89 


90 


FIDELIA 


which was to come altogether in a trainload lot from 
Detroit. Put the picture of that order and the check 
and picture of the train pullin’ out of Detroit, all in 
the papers. That was new, then; and good! Boy, 
we got ’em talking. Well, the trainload got under 
way; I’d sent for it, you understand; ordered it, paid 
a deposit. It was billed to me; all mine. 

“And I never suspected anything.” 

At this point in his narrative, Mr. Snelgrove in¬ 
variably paused dramatically. 

“I can’t say we never got warning, though,” he ad¬ 
mitted with a sense of fairness. “The morning that 
trainload arrived and was laying in the freight yard, 
the wind was from the southwest and several people 
commented what a queer odor there was in the air. 
But o’ course, the stock yards are down in that direc¬ 
tion; Chicago’s used to feelin’ charitable toward a 
southwest wind. It did seem that the yards was going 
extra strong that morning but nobody thought much 
about it. Then we went down and began unloading. 
Boy, it was my trainload of cars! Rotten was no 
word to describe that model. 

“Seems the factory had got a new engineer who’d 
given ’em an accumulation of economical second 
thoughts, at the last moment of manufacturing, which 
they’d wished onto the model without taking the 
trouble to whisper anything about it to the agents. 
The factory thought they was fine. But, boy, when 
you tried ’em! Well, there they stood; take ’em or 
leave ’em. Like a fool, out of loyalty to the factory, 
I took ’em. Well, I practically had to; I had nearly 


SOME ENLIGHTENMENTS 


91 


half of ’em sold with the buyers phoning in every 
day bawling for deliveries. And so they went out.” 

At this point again, Mr. Snelgrove paused, feelingly. 

“Each one with my personal guarantee. I used 
to tie a special calling card around the radiator cap 
reading, ‘Consider my name embossed below the 
manufacturer’s on this car. I personally stand back 
of it. Irving Eugene Snelgrove.’ Gosh, how per¬ 
sonal I used to be. And how free with printed mat¬ 
ter. I remember when I was scheming up those 
words, I called to my cashier: ‘Say, Jim, what’ll those 
cards cost?’ ‘Oh, ’bout ’leven dollars,’ he yelled 
back. Fifty thousand and eleven would be closer 
to it when, ’bout two months later, the factory went 
broke with half the cars on my hands and the rest 
coming back to me as fast as they could get tows to 
pull ’em in. 

“I changed my middle name from Eugene to Ex¬ 
perience that summer. Well, boy, that’s all right; 
all over now; nothing but the benefit of it left. 
Nothing like going broke—good and absolutely broke 
onGe —to make a sound business man. We’ll get 
dividends on that experience to my dying day.” 

Snelgrove looked about forty-five but probably was 
older. He was a wiry, energetic philosopher with jet 
black hair which he dyed wherever it showed a streak 
of gray. Apparently—Snelgrove never was definite 
about his youth—he had started to shift for himself 
at an early date and in a most mixed company; for 
middle-aged, down and out ex-prize fighters, retired 
and obese jockeys, base-ball players who were great in 



92 


FIDELIA 


their day and now had been dropped even from “the 
bushes/’ called on Irving E. regularly, made a more 
or less overt “touch” and always got something, un¬ 
grudgingly and also unvirtuously given. 

Dave liked Snelgrove for his optimism, for the way 
he had come up by his own energy and for his loy¬ 
alty to his old friends. Also, Snelgrove’s given word 
was inviolate. Dave had doubted this, at first. 

He had met Mr. Snelgrove in a “used car” sale in 
which Snelgrove had a secondhand Rolls Royce and 
Dave had a cash buyer. Snelgrove had a chance to 
misrepresent a value and Dave thought he had done so 
and Dave was consequently impressed when he found 
Snelgrove was right. 

Dave knew nothing about his domestic arrange¬ 
ments, not even for certain whether he was married. 
Women telephoned often. He lived in a hotel on the 
south side but slept, about half the nights, at a Turk¬ 
ish bath, having a passion for cleanliness and per¬ 
sonal service. He indulged in daily shaves and facial 
massages and frequent manicures; but he was strict 
with himself at the table. He ate sparingly, keep¬ 
ing himself hard and lean and either smoked or chewed 
at a cigar incessantly. 

He always started a talk of any importance by 
rolling a good cigar across his desk to Dave; he never 
remembered that Dave did not smoke. 

“Boy, Hamilton and me had another talk to-day on 
the long distance,” he said casually to Dave this af¬ 
ternoon, after rolling the cigar across. “He’s decided 
our price is wrong. We got to give quality, all kinds 
of quality, the way the demand is going now. We got 



SOME ENLIGHTENMENTS 


93 


to raise our price two hundred dollars on the touring; 
the rest proportional.” 

“But we’ve announced the price,” Dave objected. 
“We’ve taken some orders already. We can’t hold peo¬ 
ple to a new price.” 

“Sure,” agreed Snelgrove readily. “But we’re slip¬ 
ping every buyer two hundred dollars more of quality. 
They can’t expect to get that free. Just see’em and 
get’em to come up two hundred. You can do it. It’ll 
pay you for the time; we get eighty dollars extra per 
car.” 

“Then,” said David, “we’re giving them a hundred 
and twenty dollars more value at most and trying to 
get two hundred.” 

“Sure,” Snelgrove agreed. “That’s all right. No¬ 
body’ll suppose you’re going around to sell him for 
your health, will he?” 

But David stood his ground. “This firm will fill 
the orders I’ve taken, and we’ve accepted, at the old 
price or not at all.” 

“It’ll kill half your commission,” Snelgrove warned. 

“All right,” said David and went out on his round 
of calls on new prospects. To them, he had to quote 
the new price, of course, and he found it hard to arouse 
interest in the new model. He telephoned to Alice at 
six o’clock, as he always did when he was in town, and 
he took a good deal of satisfaction in talking with her. 
He did not think of Fidelia Netley until he started to 
call Alice and remembered that she and he had had 
trouble in the morning. 

Returning to the fraternity house at nine o’clock, he 
studied until nearly midnight when, after Lan had 




94 


FIDELIA 


gone to bed and the rest of the house was quiet, he 
leaned back in his chair, no longer able to concentrate 
his thoughts on his reading. 

At such moments, his mind usually went to Alice; 
he would close his eyes and see her. To-night he tried 
to direct his thoughts to her but they would not go. 

What he kept seeing was a shaft of the sun with a 
girl glorious upon the edge of it; what he felt was the 
lilt of her step beside him. Clearly he saw the line 
of her profile with her pretty, provoking nose which 
shortened so fascinatingly when she smiled. 

He got up and suddenly realized he was not so tired; 
it was as if, in those moments, he had rested a long 
time. 

The clock in old University tower boomed the twelve 
of midnight. Unconsciously he reckoned, “In eight 
hours I’ll see her again.” Then he came to himself. 

“What’s the matter with me? That was the trouble 
between Alice and me. I know it. She did.” 



CHAPTER VIII 


THE VALLEY OF TITANS 

D AVE decided, two days later, to see no more 
of Fidelia Netley. Of course it was impos¬ 
sible for him literally to carry out this de¬ 
cision; for as long as he stayed in college, and she 
did, he was certain to meet her, not only daily, but 
; probably several times a day. 

What he meant was that he would not seek her but 
I would avoid her as much as possible; and he would put 
her out of his mind. 

He succeeded in this to the extent that he refrained 
from meeting her on the walks, when she was bound 
in the same direction as himself, but he spoke to her in 
the college halls and every morning he spent the hour 
from eleven to twelve in her splendid presence. 

She did not always sit in the shaft of the sun; and 
frequently the sun did not shine, but she always gave 
him a sensation of splendor of color and of strength. 

He forbade himself to glance often at her but it 
did no good to forbid himself to think about her; he 
could not help it. Although he kept up his habit of 
taking notes on the lecture, he did it only mechanically 
and seldom knew what he was writing. He could not 
keep his mind on Danton, Robespierre or even Marie 
Antoinette with Fidelia Netley nearly at his side. 

He tried the alternative of thinking about Alice, who 
was nearer than Fidelia, but this was only more dis- 
95 





96 


FIDELIA 


quieting. He thought: “Alice feels what I’m doing. 
She knows it’s not the same. And it’s not!” 

It cast him into shame for himself and he realized 
that it ought to make him miserable. He wondered 
how it did not for, instead of being wretched, he felt 
an amazing recklessness which gave him pangs of exal¬ 
tation surprising and strange to him. Also they fright¬ 
ened him; he warned himself, “If I give in to this, I 
don’t know what I may do.” He had never before 
understood impulses of utter irresponsibility. 

The nearest he had come to them had been that night 
with Alice and he tried to believe, as she did, that 
everything was as before with them. Neither of them 
spoke of Fidelia Netley; and there was, in this, a cer¬ 
tain confession of their fear of her; for everybody in 
the college was talking about her and it was queer not 
to mention her at all. 

Then occurred his astonishing conduct of Friday 
morning. 

He awoke early that morning, about five o’clock, he 
guessed; for the stars were clear and sharp above his 
window and the air which came in was dry, keen night 
air. It was very cold. The thermometer had shown 
zero when he went to bed; and now it seemed even 
colder. 

Down in the basement, the freshman who took care 
of the furnace was shoveling coal. Dave could hear 
the scrape of the steel scoop plainly; probably he had 
been awakened by the shaking of the grate, but he 
might have stirred anyway from long habit of rising 
early in winter. He had tended furnaces to support 
himself when he first came to Northwestern; so these 


THE VALLEY OF TITANS 97 

sounds set him to thinking of his freshman days here 
when he was becoming the friend of Alice. 

He turned over, uncomfortably, and tried to go back 
to sleep but failed. He got to thinking about Fidelia 
Netley, then drove his mind to figuring on business and 
considering Mr. Snelgrove. It came back to Fidelia 
Netley and Alice; to Fidelia again. 

Dave got up and taking his clothes into the bath¬ 
room, so as not to waken Lan, he dressed, shaved and 
went down stairs. It was barely six, then, and still 
dark. No one else was about, not even the cook. 
The freshman, who had started up the furnace fire, 
had gone back to bed. 

Dave went down and poked at the furnace; he 
took a bottle of milk from the ice-box, poured a glass 
and seized some crackers and went into the living- 
room to study. When dawn brightened, he raised the 
window shades and gazed out at the empty street. 

He was still idle and restless when he heard the 
cook enter by the kitchen door and heard upstairs the 
slamming down of windows and talk and whistling. 

It was seven o’clock and some one passed the house. 
Dave did not see her until she was by. He jumped 
up from the chair in which he had been lounging. The 
girl was Fidelia Netley. 

He did not see her face; but her figure and her brown 
fur coat and her hair and her toque and, most es¬ 
pecially, her vigor, were unmistakable. She seemed to 
him to be hurrying and he thought: “Something’s 
happened!” 

He pressed to the window and watched her till she 
was out of sight beyond the next houses. When he 


98 


FIDELIA 


stepped back, he stood staring down, quivering and 
arguing with himself; then he took his cap and heavy 
overcoat from the closet. The coat called Alice to 
his feeling and he hesitated but opened the front door 
quietly. 

Upon the porch, he stood and gazed down the street. 
Fidelia Netley had turned from the street; no one was 
in sight. He wondered whether anybody upstairs had 
happened to see her pass and now would see him follow 
her. He noticed that a light fluff of snow had fallen 
during the night and so late that it had not been 
tracked by people returning home in the evening; it 
lay like a heavy frost on the cleared sidewalk between 
the high, white ridges of the old snow. 

He easily traced Fidelia’s footprints and saw that 
she had turned the corner to the east and then made 
south on the avenue which ran along the edge of the 
campus which she followed on its turn east again. 
Evidently she was going to the lake. He hurried and 
soon came in sight of her. 

She and he were the only people out on the lake 
shore at this clear, cold moment before sunrise. To 
the left lay the white campus of the university with 
nobody astir on its paths; to the right was a white 
stretch of park with stark, black trees; behind were 
the avenues of houses where people were only begin¬ 
ning to get up; directly before him, lay the white, win¬ 
ter hills and hummocks of the lake. 

For the first cold weather of this winter had come 
with wind; gales had beaten waves upon the piers 
and over the sands of the shore, blowing up spray 
which froze and rolled with other drops and needles 


THE VALLEY OF TITANS 


99 


of ice and which laid the foundation of hummocks 
and hills which the later winds and waves built up 
and built up, little by little, storm by storm, until now 
they had made miniature mountains of spray and 
snow and ice all along the shore and out over the 
water in white, gleaming peninsulas and capes of 
frozen headlands and ice-cliffs. 

Beyond, lay smooth, floating ice—the witness of 
cold weather with calm; still further out was water, 
the witness of wind again, when the further ice-field 
broke off and blew out. 

There the floe was in sight with a white edge of 
cast-up, congealed spray. Beyond it was water once 
more; then ice; ice to the edge of the horizon, to the 
edge of the world, to the edge of creation, nothing but 
ice and sky. But in a moment there would be, also, 
the sun. 

Fidelia was leaving the shore and was among the 
white, gleaming, miniature mountains. She was fol¬ 
lowing the irregular way of their valleys. Sometimes 
a hill completely hid her; for a few moments, while 
she followed the path of some deeper canon, she kept 
out of his sight; but when she was a hundred yards 
off shore, she began climbing the ice slopes, appearing 
high above the distant, flat horizon, descending and 
climbing again. 

Dave entered the dwarf valley in which her foot¬ 
print, and his, became Titanic. If he did not look 
back but gazed only ahead at her and at the sky, he 
could lose all scale; they were the Titans, she and he, 
among the mountains with the sky and the sun. 

She stood at the edge on the last high cliff where 


100 


FIDELIA 


the waves had beaten and built before lulling down 
in their calm. The water was quiet now; for sound, 
there was the merest, softest surge under the ice. 
This miniature world was still below its silent sky; 
and to the man in the glittering, crystal valley, the 
girl on the edge of the tiny height before him became 
a glorious Goddess of the sun. 

Perhaps simply by chance, perhaps by his own de¬ 
sign, but without his being aware that he did it, he 
put himself in such position that she divided the sun 
as it rose. It made her, and the shining height on 
which she stood, gigantic; it shot the spray crystals 
at her feet with pink and purple and crimson and 
haloed her head with red gold of her own. While 
she stood there with the red sky before her and yet 
while the yellow rim of the sun pushed up, it kept 
her a Goddess. Then day was come; the spell of 
dawn and sunrise was broken. 

Fidelia Netley turned about and saw that some one 
had followed her; she saw who he was and she spoke 
to him. 

“Why, you’ve come here too! Isn’t it wonder¬ 
ful?” 

He knew then that she had not suspected he had 
followed; for her thought, even after she turned, did 
not wholly go to him. 

“It is wonderful,” he said, and she exclaimed: “I 
wanted to see the sun come out of the lake on a morn¬ 
ing like this. I couldn’t get anybody at the house 
to get up with me. I’m glad you did.” 

“I’m glad I did,” Dave agreed and then realized 
that this hardly explained him. “I saw you pass our 



THE VALLEY OF TITANS 


101 


house,” he started. He felt the need of adding, “I 
thought something was the matter,” but he felt how 
silly it would sound now to suggest that, when she 
turned toward the lake, he had had an idea that she 
might be intending a plunge into these waters; besides, 
he had never actually supposed it. So he said aloud, 
and rather weakly, “I wondered where you were going. 
I happened to be up. I’m often up early.” 

“So am I but not so often out, though I love it.” 

“So do I,” said Dave. “Or at least I think I’m 
going to.” 

“Why don’t you know now?” 

“Oh, outdoors has meant mostly work for me; but 
now it’s going to mean—well, just outdoors to me, 
too.” 

She nodded, her eyes softening. “I’ve heard about 
how you’ve worked,” she said. “Outdoors and in¬ 
doors, everywhere was a place for terribly hard work 
for you, wasn’t it?” 

She started walking and he went close beside her. 
She did not seem to choose any direction but naturally 
to follow the winding of the little valley of ice and 
snow which, though it wavered to right and left, held 
generally to the north. 

She was on his right, between him and the sun. 

“You seem to stand up to hard work!” she con¬ 
sidered, not sympathizing now but admiring. 

“You certainly stand up to the cold!” 

She laughed as her foot almost at that instant slid 
on the icy side of a hummock; she caught herself as 
she went down on one knee with her hand to the ice 
and she recovered so quickly that, though he thrust 


102 


FIDELIA 


his hands under her arms to pull her up, he gave hardly 
any assistance. He merely felt the rhythm of her 
body and the swell of her breast as she caught breath 
and stood up. 

“Sometimes I seem to slip,” she said; and thanked 
him. “When will this freeze for skating?” she asked, 
glancing away toward the open water. 

“It’s doing it now,” Dave assured. “See it steam¬ 
ing!” 

The water was beginning to give off mist. The 
water was warmer, of course, much warmer than the 
air; and now with the rising of the sun, one of those 
capricious currents came which made mist through the 
sweep of colder over warmer. 

Fidelia watched it but Dave did not; he watched 
her. Glowing color was in her cheeks and in her clear, 
steady eyes; her lips were red and her breath blew 
in white little clouds from between them as she spoke. 

“When will it freeze over, do you suppose?” 

“By to-morrow, if it stays calm. But don’t you go 
far out on it, if it does!” 

“Why not?” 

He pointed to the distant floe. “That was shore 
ice a week or so ago. The wind or a current got it 
and it’s been visiting Michigan since, I suppose. 
Maybe it’ll be back here to-night; maybe it’ll decide 
it wants to see Mackinac.” 

“Decide!” she repeated his word, turning to him, 
pleased. “I like to think of ice and wind and the 
water deciding things, too. It’s so much more ex¬ 
citing when—” 

“When what?” asked Dave. 


THE VALLEY OF TITANS 


103 


“When they're doing things to you and you have to 
beat them to live." 

“You speak as though you often had to do that." 

She was looking away again; and he persisted, 
“Have you?" 

“Well, once anyway," she admitted. 

“Where?" Dave persisted. 

She stared off as though she hadn't heard. “What 
birds are those? Gulls?" 

“Yes," said Dave and again demanded: “Where 
was that?" 

“Oh—out west." 

“At Stanford?" 

“No. Please don’t ask me!" she begged, frankly. 

Dave started with shame. “I don’t know what's 
got into me," he apologized. “I never was so rude 
as that in all my life." 

She said nothing but she did something better to 
make him feel forgiven. They had come to an ice 
grotto where the waves of the early winter had half 
completed one of the miniature mountains; they had 
built up half a hollow hill and then subsided, and 
merely had floored the half they had created. It left 
a wide, domed cavern with the solid side to the shore, 
the opening to the sun; and there was a flat ice shelf 
like a bench within it. 

Fidelia went in and sat down and with her gloved 
hand, patted the seat beside her. “Isn't this wonder¬ 
ful!" she said. “We might be on the north coast of 
Iceland or in this cave fifty thousand years ago!" 

“Yes," said Dave. “There’s no change in ice and 
water and the sun!" 





104 


FIDELIA 


They proceeded after a few moments and soon ex¬ 
plored another grotto and were finding others when 
the beat of a bell sounded over the shore; and the 
clock in the tower of old University counted the hour 
to eight. 

“Eight!” said Dave and realized what it meant. 

Alice had come to class; she had looked for him 
on the walk and, later, in the halls. Now she was in 
the class-room and, not seeing him, was wondering 
why. Never, except for a most urgent reason, did he 
miss or was he late at a class. Eight o’clock! It 
couldn’t be! He pulled out his watch. It was so! 

Fidelia’s and his north coast of Iceland, and their 
caves of fifty thousand years ago, were just off shore 
along the campus in full view of a hundred windows 
and of the walk along the edge of the bluff over the 
beach. 

“Why,” said Fidelia as she realized the time. 
“We’ve got to run.” 

She started and, as they ran over the ice, he caught 
her hand to help her and thus they came to the beach 
below the campus. 

Her eight o’clock was in a different building from 
his; so he went on alone to old University and to Alice. 
He wanted to “cut” the class entirely; he wanted to 
meet nobody, least of all, Alice. How could he face 
her? 

He opened the door of the class-room and, not 
glancing toward Alice more than to know that she 
was in her usual place, he avoided his usual seat be¬ 
side Lan and dropped into the nearest chair. Having 
no note-book, he could not even pretend to take notes 


THE VALLEY OF TITANS 105 

so he sat gazing at the lecturer while he thought what 
to say to Alice! What to say! 

He must tell her immediately after class or some 
one else would. For some one must have seen him 
leave the house to follow Fidelia Netley; some one 
must have seen him with her on the ice. But what 
had David Herrick to tell? What was it which had 
happened this morning? Exactly what, in its entire 
truth, was that which he had done? 

When the lecture was over, he was the first out of 
the room and he waited near the door to speak to 
Alice when she came out. But she looked up at him 
and then down and away from him and, seeing her, 
he dared not speak to her. He shrank back, dumb. 
She went out, staring straight ahead and not speak¬ 
ing to any one. Myra was with her but Alice did not 
speak even to her. 

They left the building and Dave followed and saw 
Alice and Myra go from the campus to the street where 
Alice had parked her car. 

He hurried to catch up; but Alice got into her car 
and he saw her push Myra away when she wished to 
enter. Alice shut the door and drove off. 

“Alice!” Dave called. “Alice!” 

She must have heard him but she only drove more 
rapidly away. 

Myra heard him, of course; and she turned back 
and met him. 

“Dave!” she assailed him. “Have you the slight¬ 
est idea what you’ve done?” 


CHAPTER IX 


“mine, mine!” 

F IDELIA attended her classes as usual that morn¬ 
ing; Dave did not even return to the campus 
but went to the Delta Alpha house where he 
shut himself in his room for an hour. Then he went 
down town and surprised Mr. Snelgrove by appearing 
for work before noon. 

He didn’t do much; he could not concentrate on the 
important business of selling cars. He kept feeling 
his sensation of the cold sunrise alone with Fidelia 
Netley and the surprising delight of his play with her 
that they were in ice caves of fifty thousand years ago. 
She and he seemed to have separated themselves from 
other people by their walk together, as Titans, in their 
magic valley of ice and snow. 

“She had a good time too!” he said to himself. 
“She had no more idea than I how long we were there.” 

Intermittently, he went aghast at himself: “What 
was I thinking of? What was the matter with me? 
Alice!” 

Several times he started to go to her; several times 
he went into a telephone booth with a plan of calling 
her; but he waited until the hour, late in the after¬ 
noon, when he usually telephoned her. Then he did 
not ask for her but only gave the maid a message 
saying that he would be at the house at eight o’clock. 
He did not understand himself that day. He was 
106 


“MINE, MINE! 


107 


sorry and ashamed more than he had been before 
but also he experienced, more than before, the strange, 
defiant pangs of exaltation which had followed his 
first meeting with Fidelia Netley. He did not will 
them; they came. 

They came with the night cold off the lake and with 
the sight of the stars above the ice when he ap¬ 
proached Alice’s home. They went with sight of the 
lighted windows of the big, stone mansion between the 
boulevard and the shore. 

It still surprised Dave Herrick to realize that this 
was a house of friends of his, that he not only could 
enter it but that he was a privileged person within. 
He had been brought up in suspicion of the rich. 

There was no one in Itanaca who really was rich; 
and there was no house either in Itanaca or in any of 
the larger towns of the county which could be com¬ 
pared with this mansion in which Alice lived. Ob¬ 
viously her father was a rich man; and that had meant 
to Dave Herrick that he was, therefore, almost cer¬ 
tainly a Godless man. He might be a hypocrite, 
making a show of prayer and right-doing; but if he 
was rich, something must be wrong with him. 

Dave had been taught Christ’s own word to prove 
that: “Verily I say unto you, it is easier for a camel 
to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man 
to enter into the kingdom of God.” 

“Woe unto you that are rich!” the Lord had cried 
out; and his apostle warned: “Go to now, ye rich 
men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come 
upon you.” 

Dave was eighteen years old, and he had been only 


108 


FIDELIA 


a few months away from Itanaca when Alice first took 
him to her home for dinner; and in coming to dine at 
this large, luxurious house Dave felt that he was, in 
some way, condoning unrighteousness. 

He did not know what unrighteousness; for his 
father had never been definite in describing the ways 
in which the rich offended; and Dave discovered little 
that night. 

Of course he encountered strong contrasts to the 
manners of Itanaca where few families kept “help” 
and where those who did always had the help sit at 
the table and naturally treated them as equals. The 
Sothrons had several servants and Dave had learned 
enough not to expect Alice’s family to eat with their 
maids; but he had not known enough not to be sur¬ 
prised, and disturbed, at the way the Sothrons ig¬ 
nored the feelings of their help. Dave would not 
treat others so and, having the courage of his con¬ 
victions, he pointedly thanked the maids when they 
served him at the table, looking up at them when he 
spoke. 

Now he was not ashamed of having done that; but 
he had ceased it long ago. To-night, when the door 
was opened for him, he spoke to the maid personally 
in much the same way that the Sothrons themselves 
did. He was nervous when he asked for “Miss Alice.” 

“Mr. Sothron is in the library,” the maid said. 

Dave entered the library where he 'found Alice’s 
father alone with a newspaper in his hand. “Good 
evening, Dave,” Mr. Sothron greeted him as usual 
and without rising. 

“Good evening, Mr. Sothron,” said Dave, standing. 


109 


“MINE, MINE!” 

“Sit down, boy,” Alice’s father invited, pleasantly. 
“Alice won’t be here right away.” 

“She’s out?” 

“Oh, no; she’s in her room. You’ve been having 
a little difficulty between you, I take it.” 

“Yes, sir,” Dave admitted. 

“Sit down,” Mr. Sothron repeated; and this time 
Dave obeyed. 

His nervousness increased but he was used to feel¬ 
ing nervous in this house and he had had ways of 
combating it. At first he had done it by summoning 
to himself a feeling of scorn for the trappings of 
wealth which made him uncomfortable. But he could 
not continue feeling this; for the more familiar he be¬ 
came with these people, the more ridiculous became 
his previous teachings in regard to the rich. If woe 
was to come to Mr. Sothron, because he had left his 
father’s farm in New York state, put himself through 
Cornell, and then invented and manufactured electrical 
appliances which everybody wanted, Dave would 
like to know the justice of it. He thought Mr. Sothron 
about as good and useful a citizen as one could find; 
and the idea of Mr. Sothron having to howl and weep, 
was simply absurd. He wouldn’t do it. So Dave’s 
defense of his early ideas soon left him. He became 
merely a poor young man in the embarrassing position 
of a suitor in a house of wealth. Every one here al¬ 
ways had been kind to him; they were well-bred 
people and besides they made him feel that they hon¬ 
estly liked him, but not as a husband for Alice. 

For the first time, Dave felt in Alice’s father an 
absence of that opposition to-night. 






110 


FIDELIA 


“I’ve no idea what your difficulty is, Dave,” Mr. 
Sothron continued. “I know only that Alice came 
home early this morning and has shut herself in her 
room ever since. She seems to think it is serious. 
But of course,” he said, pleasantly and confidently 
and yet putting a question into his tone, “it’s not.” 

“No, sir,” Dave protested. “It’s not.” 

“That’s good.” 

“Yes, sir.” Dave stirred, gripping his hands. 
That’s good, Mr. Sothron had said. So opposition to 
him was really gone. It loosed something in Dave 
which sent a flood of warmth over him. “Can I see 
Alice now, sir? Won’t you tell her that I’m here?” 

Mr. Sothron gazed at him. “Not yet.” But for 
a few moments, Mr. Sothron would not tell why; he 
sat there, slight-looking in his big chair, with his clear 
gray eyes studying Dave; and after a moment, Dave 
ceased to meet them. Dave’s eyes lifted to Mr. Soth- 
ron’s smoothly brushed, grayish hair, then glanced 
to his knees over which his trousers turned trimly, 
and Dave noticed, as he often had before, the small¬ 
ness and slenderness of Mr. Sothron’s feet. Alice’s 
were unusually small; and so were her hands, like 
her father’s. And, with this thought, Dave’s mind 
jumped to Fidelia and he wondered who she was like, 
who gave her her glorious red hair and her strong, 
beautiful body. 

“What was the trouble?” Mr. Sothron questioned 
directly. 

“What?” said Dave. “It was a girl who came to 
college this term whom—whom Alice imagines I’ve— 
I’ve—” he stopped. 


“MINE, MINE! 


Ill 


“I see,” said Mr. Sothron. “I suppose so.” 

“Mr. Sothron, there’s nothing in it! The other 
night, Alice and I agreed on the date we want to be 
married. It’s the twenty-second of June. I was 
going to see you about it this week. I’ve made my 
arrangements to go into business; I’m going to have 
an agency for—” 

Mr. Sothron stopped him. “Alice told me of that. 
Why didn’t you see me this week?” 

Dave stared and at last said: “I am now, sir.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Sothron and looked away. “Well, 
there is no feeling against you here, Dave. It is 
useless to say there never was. You came to us 
distinctly as a surprise. We did not expect you; we 
did not expect any one from Northwestern for—Alice. 

“You know we did not expect her to stay there. 
She was so young, when she was ready for college, 
we thought we would send her to the university and 
keep her at home for a year; then we meant to send 
her to Wellesley; but she would not go. Of course 
you know you were the chief reason. But perhaps 
you do not appreciate something else.” 

“What?” asked Dave, warm and uncomfortable. 

“The peculiar advantage you were able to take of 
her because of the undeveloped state in which you 
came to college. In a woman’s affection—in a girl’s 
love,” Mr. Sothron substituted frankly, “there is as 
much of the maternal as anything else; in some girls’ 
love, at any rate. Alice saw you and liked you and 
set herself to the business of bringing you out; she 
began at something which became the greatest thing 
in the world to her—almost the only thing in her 




112 


FIDELIA 


world, after a while; that was the development of you. 
She is perfectly willing to give the rest of her life to 
it, as she has given most of the last four years.” 

He got up and Dave saw that he was quivering. 
Dave saw, too, that his eyes glistened. 

“I did not think that a third person—especially a 
girl who had just come to college—could come be¬ 
tween you two. I’m glad it’s not so.” He gave Dave 
his hand. “I’ll ask Alice to come down.” 

Dave was left with no illusion in regard to Mr. 
Sothron’s whole acceptance of him now; it was be¬ 
cause Alice’s father had seen how Dave could hurt 
Alice. Never—not once—had he hurt her before 
Fidelia Netley appeared. 

He went into the hall when he heard Alice on the 
stairs and as he saw her slowly coming down to him, 
he started up to her. He had never thought of his 
taking an advantage of her; she was so small and 
sweet! 

He reached her several steps from the bottom and 
he took her in his arms. 

“Your father says it’s all right, Alice!” 

“What did you tell him about this morning?” 

“This morning!” 

He held her soft, slight body; this morning he had 
held Fidelia Netley’s when his hands were under her 
arms as she was rising from the ice. 

“David, why did you go down to the lake with her? 
You must have got up on purpose!” 

“I didn’t.” 

“David!” She was holding to him, almost hyster¬ 
ically, with her head down so he could not see her 


113 


“MINE, MINE!” 

face. Not Davey, she called him; never once did she 
call him Davey. 

“Alice, I happened to be up. You’ll believe that 
when I tell you. I happened to see her go by; I 
thought something was the matter. I followed her; 
then she went down to the lake.” 

“What for?” 

“She wanted to see the sun rise.” 

“It was before sunrise!” 

He admitted, “Yes.” 

Alice pushed back from him and stared at him now. 
“I saw the sun rise this morning! I was in bed. 
You were with her then!” 

David had nothing to say. 

“All the time I was getting up, and having break¬ 
fast, and riding to college, you were with her! 
Where?” 

He replied, almost brusquely. “Down there, Alice. 
Down on the ice.” 

“But it was zero this morning; zero!” 

He thought: Zero! Yes, it was; but he had not 
cared. Fidelia Netley had not felt it; nor he. Alice 
could not imagine that. It set Fidelia with him apart 
from every one else again; there they were together 
for their hour, in their world which they had dis¬ 
covered, not feeling the cold nor thinking of time. 

He said none of this; but Alice, whom he held, be¬ 
came sensitive to it through his touch; for she shrank 
from him; and he cauht her tighter and cried: 

“I didn’t mean to do anything. I didn’t mean to!” 
And he thought, as he clasped her, that he made her 
calm again. 





114 


FIDELIA 


But what stilled her was a return of that sense of 
her helplessness before Fidelia Netley which had 
struck her, upon that first morning, when she came 
into the history class-room and saw Fidelia sitting in 
the sun. 

And Alice, standing quiet with David’s arms about 
her, believed him, that he hadn’t meant to do any¬ 
thing., She could believe even that Fidelia, in 
going to the lake that morning, had not meant or 
planned anything against her. What Alice was feel¬ 
ing against her, and that which paralysed her to this 
quiet, was not intentions and plans but impulses, 
wholly unplanned and ten times as terrible to her, 
therefore. 

She felt that she could not fight them and she 
had to fight; for if she did not, it meant giving him up 
—him whom she had taken when he was a queer and 
awkward boy four years ago and whom she had 
brought to this. 

Strength—her soft, passionate strength—came back 
to her fingers and she clung to him. “You’re mine!” 
she whispered to him. “Mine! Mine! Mine!” 

And he, holding her, told her: “Of course I’m 
yours, of course.” 


CHAPTER X 




THE RESULT OF A REPLY 

S O, in the morning, they met before class as 
usual, Dave coming from the Delta Alpha house 
and Alice coming from home. The college, 
seeing, understood that he had explained, whatever 
he had had to explain, and that she was satisfied. 

Of course many persons talked; and it was par¬ 
ticularly easy to spread talk in regard to Fidelia 
Netley. The college knew that at Minnesota, and at 
Stanford, she had been a Tau Gamma; and, knowing 
that Alice Sothron controlled Tau Gamma here, the 
college said: “Now Alice will never let Fidelia 
Netley in.” 

Alice, who had written both to Minnesota and 
Stanford in the usual form, had a reply from Minne¬ 
apolis which confirmed Fidelia’s statement that the 
chapter had initiated her five years before; the letter 
contained the usual pleasant compliments. A letter 
from the Stanford chapter arrived at the end of the 
next week: 

“In reply to your inquiry about Fidelia Netley, who was 
initiated by the chapter at the University of Minnesota, and 
who has told you that she was a member of this chapter for 
one year, we assure you this is the fact. 

“She creditably passed in all her courses here and her 
leaving the university, at the end of the year, was not due 




116 


FIDELIA 


to any difficulty with the university. We know nothing 
about what Sister Fidelia Netley may have done recently.” 

Alice took this to Myra in her room at Willard and, 
after she read it, Myra whistled: “What a slapper! 
I told you there was much queer; but I never ex¬ 
pected Stanford to admit it.” 

“They haven’t,” Alice objected. 

“Oh, what would they have to say to just slightly 
suggest it to you? Ship on the legal proof?” 

“Of what?” 

“Darling, I haven’t second sight; I’m sorry; but 
I can faintly discern the outlines of a pikestaff when 
it’s poked before my face in broad daylight. She’s 
done something. We don’t know what and maybe 
it’s true that Stanford doesn’t actually know, if she 
did it after she left; but I bet they’ve a beautiful 
idea.” 

Alice turned from Myra and walked to the window;; 
her hands were clenched and her lips were trembling 
when she turned back. “My, I’ve got to have her 
in!” 

“No, you don’t!” 

“Oh, yes I do. I know!” 

“What?” demanded Myra. 

“He’ll think I kept her out.” 

“I’ll tell Dave I did! I don’t care.” 

“I don’t want her out!” Alice cried. “I don’t 
want one thing more unusual or talkable about her. 
He’s on her side, as it is. I’ve got to be on her side, 
too. Oh, My, don’t you see?” 

Myra clasped her, kissed her and was conquered? 


THE RESULT OF A REPLY 117 

and the next day, Fidelia Netley was formally 
affiliated with the local chapter of Tau Gamma. 

Naturally, she mentioned so important an event 
in her diary that night. 

i Today Tau Gamma took me in; and it happened at a 
wonderful time for me. Day before yesterday, you know” 
[Fidelia often wrote as though she were conversing] “Roy 
Wheen came right up to me and said, ‘Are you related to 
anybody named Bolton?’ 

“I kept my head when I heard that name; I don’t be¬ 
lieve I showed a thing. ‘Where of?’ I said. He said, ‘I 
don’t know. They just came through Mondora. The name 
was Bolton.’ 

“ ‘Mondora where?’ I said. He said ‘Idaho. I made a 
mistake, I guess.’ 

“But I don’t think he thinks he made a mistake. He 
was trying me out. He’s a queer boy, shy. He wouldn’t 
want to do harm. He’d rather make friends, if he had a 
chance. 

“I was figuring what I could do for him; he’s so out of 
things. He’s not in any fraternity and hardly knows a so¬ 
rority girl to speak to. Now I can send him a card to the 
Tau Gamma dance. There are bigger affairs at North¬ 
western but the Tau Gamma formal is the hop of the year.” 

She sent the card the next day; and Roy Wheen, 
receiving it, thanked her and asked no more questions. 
He boasted a little that Fidelia Netley had invited 
him; but he did not grow bold enough to ask to take 
her to the dance. Bill Fraser was going to take her, 
as Bill boasted more than a little. 

Of course Dave was taking Alice. They were to 
“lead”; and for months Alice had been dreaming 
about it; now she shunned thinking about it at all 




118 


FIDELIA 


Fidelia would be there; she would be with bare neck 
and bare arms in a beautiful dress close about her 
body; and her hair would be arranged with an orna¬ 
ment and her skin would be so white and pink. 

It would be warm, with shaded, colored lights and 
with music; and David would clasp Fidelia in the 
dance; and after that night—Alice was sure—David 
would never be hers again. And she was so sure of 
this that, conversely, she was sure that until then she 
would hold him. 

She was giving a skating party, a week before 
the dance; a dozen Tau Gamma girls had come down 
to her home for the afternoon bringing as many men. 
The lake had frozen smooth and there was fine 
skating. By jumping little ridges, you could go as 
far out as you wanted, mile after mile; but every 
one was warned not to leave the shore stretch. For 
a strong wind was working around to the west; and 
there was always a current under the ice. 

Toward dusk, Lan Blake blew a horn to call every¬ 
body in for hot coffee and tea. He hurried it a little 
for several were skating far out and he got nervous 
about the ice which was cracking loudly. 

Some came at once; some stayed out; then every¬ 
body but one was in. “It’s Fidelia, Alice,” said 
Myra. 

Alice had known she was not there. The ice was 
definitely going out then. 

Dave, who had on his skates, spun about and 
rushed to the break in the ice and jumped it. Alice, 
who had taken off her skates, ran after him and tried 
to jump the break but went into the water and was 





THE RESULT OF A REPLY 


119 


pulled out, ignominiously, and hurried into the house. 
As they brought her in, she saw Dave jump again and 
go on. The floating field itself was breaking. 

Far out in the dusk, skating, was Fidelia. 

The girls made Alice go to her room and, by force, 
they changed her clothes. When she got outdoors 
again, everybody but Dave and Fidelia was on the 
shore edge of the ice. Before them was water as far 
as the dark let them see; beyond was silence and 
coldness and night. 










CHAPTER XI 


A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 

D AVE was skating about with quick, ecstatic 
strength. Quickness came naturally to him 
and so did strength, in any emergency; but 
this ecstasy was something new. “Pm away,” he said 
to himself. “Away . . . away!” It was a sensation 
which thrilled through him. “Away!” 

“Away with her!” it was; he would be away with 
Fidelia Netley. 

Away from Alice. This sensation of “away” in¬ 
cluded that; but as he rushed from the shore, he did 
not feel himself fleeing from Alice, personally; she be¬ 
came only a part of all that which he was escaping— 
duty and his father’s ideas, his own fears and 
prohibitions. 

Strange that, only a few weeks ago, Alice and his 
betrothal to her represented his revolt from those 
duties and ideas of which she now had become a part. 
That had been before Fidelia Netley came, or before 
he knew her. Now what did it mean that his plan to 
marry Alice, which had been in defiance to duty, itself 
had become a duty? 

This did not become a conscious question; it was 
merely an impulse in his sensation as he skated swiftly, 
feeling the thrust of the wind at his back. He said to 
himself: “We’ll never get in.” 

By never, he meant never that night. With Fidelia 
120 


A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 


121 


Netley, he would be away from all the rest, away from 
all the world, together with her and there would be no 
help for it. He would meet her out here in their realm 
of sky and stars; no one else would be about; no one 
would watch them; no clock could call them at the end 
of an hour. 

He was gloriously, recklessly exultant. He felt no 
fear at all. He was strong and young; she was, too. 
They had not thought of the cold that morning; they 
would not now, when it was not nearly so cold though 
it was night. 

There was little danger from the lake; for the floe 
was firm and thick. It might break up somewhat; 
probably it would, but great fields, acres in extent, 
would hold together. There was too much ice upon 
the water to allow the wind to whip up a sea; and that 
smooth ice offered such small edge to the wind that 
it would drift out but slowly. 

Dave saw Fidelia vaguely in the dusk. He was 
skating straight toward her. There she was! He had 
known she was in this direction before he could see 
her; throughout the afternoon he had kept himself 
aware of her presence on this side or on that, though 
he had never skated with her. So he had been sure, 
just now, that she was in the dusk toward the north. 

She had seen him and was coming to meet him. 
She was skating rapidly but without panic. “She’s 
not afraid!” he said. She seemed so little alarmed, 
indeed, that he wondered whether she knew the ice was 
drifting. He called to her: “Hello!” 

“Why! ” she exclaimed. “Why! ” 

He reached her and, with one of those swoops which 






122 FIDELIA 

a skater makes in turning, he put himself beside her 
and caught her hand. 

“Ice’s going out!” he told her. 

“You came to get me,” she said; and still he won¬ 
dered whether previously she had known. He asked: 
“Didn’t you know it?” 

“I wasn’t thinking,” she replied. “I’m sorry.” 
“Nothing to be sorry ’bout,” he said, breathlessly. 
She was not breathless; and he felt her hand steady in 
his. It drew within his, not quiveringly, but with 
regular pulsation as the rhythm of her effort pulled 
the muscles of her arm. 

“She’s all in it!” he realized as he felt this effort 
of her body. “How she puts all of herself into a 
thing!” 

It was not like skating with any other girl. Others 
moved, in comparison with Fidelia, by detached efforts. 
“How different she is!” he thought. Different from 
Alice and from any one else. 

He said to her: “No hurry.” 

“Why not?” 

“No use. We won’t get in.” 

“Then why did you come out?” 

“To get you.” 

“Can’t you get in?” 

“No. Water’s spreading too fast. You’ll see.” 
They arrived at water and stopped. 

“You came out here?” she asked. 

“About here. I jumped it. Not a chance to jump 
it now.” 

“No,” she agreed and turned, letting go his hand, 





A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 123 

and she skated south along the edge of the widening 
lead of open water. 

He followed her, glancing toward the shore. No 
one else had come; no one else was near. She reached 
open water leading eastward and she turned and skated 
back past their original point beside the water until 
she came to the third edge of the floe on the north. 

“It’s no use,” he said again. 

She agreed, “No.” And she made no feminine sug¬ 
gestion of impossible proceedings such as to attempt to 
swim to the other edge of the water, scramble upon 
the ice and make a dash for shore. “I’m sorry,” she 
said again, simply and sincerely. 

“I’m not. A few hours on the ice won’t hurt any¬ 
body.” 

“Where’s it deciding to take us, do you suppose?” 
she asked and thrilled him with her word which had 
been his word upon that morning they saw the sun¬ 
rise together and watched the floe from the shore. It 
gave him the feeling that she and he were upon that 
same floe which they had seen drifting on the horizon 
and that this evening was a direct continuation of that 
morning. 

“We’re headed for Michigan, if the wind holds,” he 
replied gayly. “You have anything against Michi¬ 
gan?” 

“Oh, I like Michigan.” 

“But I suppose,” he qualified, “somebody will go 
to work and pick us up before we’re half way there.” 

“It’s a lovely, clear night,” Fidelia said, com¬ 
fortably. 



124 


FIDELIA 


She was comfortable, Dave believed. Now she 
lifted a foot and, bending quickly, she loosened a 
skate and kicked it off; that was sensible, not to tire 
herself by standing on skates. She cleared her other 
boot of the second skate while he was stooping to help 
her. He removed his skates and he stood beside her, 
gazing at the lights on the shore. 

There was the double line of lights, which were 
the street lamps of Sheridan Road; in many places the 
line was broken, and uneven patterns of yellow win¬ 
dows showed where houses stood between the boule¬ 
vard and the shore; along other reaches of the road, 
the irregular patches of lighted windows glowed beyond 
the street lamps; and before them bright gleams waved 
back and forth, as motorcars sped by. 

“That’s what the ice comes in to see,” Fidelia said 
and her feeling caught him; for the moment, the ice, 
upon which they stood, became the barque of some ele¬ 
mental God steering shoreward for a while to look at 
the lights of man and then casting adrift to return to 
his dwelling in the dark of the stars. 

Dave drew closer to her; he wanted to share more 
of the exuberance of her feelings. 

On the shore, far away, a red flame wavered up and 
broadened and then blew flat and long, beaten down 
by the wind. 

“Bonfire,” Fidelia said. “Alice has a bonfire for 
us.” 

Dave did not want to think of Alice. He did not 
know that she had fallen into the water in her attempt 
to follow him; he did not know that she had tried to 
go with him. From the instant when he leaped the 


A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 


125 


first break in the ice, he had shut his thought to every 
one behind. “I’m away; away!” 

Now he almost resented that fire. It could be of 
no use; and under no circumstances could it have been 
of any service. There were thousands of lights mark¬ 
ing the shore; and the bonfire could satisfy no purpose 
of warmth. If Fidelia and he reached the shore, and 
especially if they had fallen into water and were freez¬ 
ing, they would not stop at the fire but would go into 
the house. No; the fire, which surely was Alice’s, had 
been built for another reason. Alice had lit it to keep 
him in mind of her. So he looked away from it. 

Before it flamed up, he had had a moment of ex¬ 
uberance and, before that, a sensation of gayety 
strange to the serious, earnest person who was David 
Herrick. Fidelia Netley had brought both to him. 
Always, from their first meeting, she had the pleasant 
power to take him out of that distraint person who 
had been himself. She had begun it by setting him 
to saying surprising, perverse things to her and then 
startling him into the amazement of following her to 
the shore at sunrise and putting him to play with her 
in the caves of the cliffs of ice. 

Not one of these things had she intended; she could 
not have imagined them, in advance, more than could 
he. And he knew that she had never intended this, 
more than he; but here he was with her, “away”— 
away from every one else and all the world once more. 

He looked back at Alice’s fire—the faint, red 
flicker on the shore. It had become so futile now 
that he ceased to resent it. His thought went from 
Alice by the road of wondering who might be, at this 





126 


FIDELIA 


moment, in Fidelia’s mind as Alice was in his. Once 
before—at least once, she had told him—Fidelia had 
been in danger when she had thought of Water and the 
Wind as personal forces opposing her. Who had been 
with her on the side against the Water and the Wind 
as he was with her now? It struck him as strange 
that, although he had wondered about that danger fre¬ 
quently, he had always imagined her alone in it until 
now. 

“You were alone that other time?” he asked her, 
suddenly. 

“When?” she said; but he knew that she recognized 
what time he meant, and without his explaining, she 
told him, “No.” 

“Who was with you?” 

She didn’t reply. 

His heart was thumping. “Hers is,” he thought. 
He put his hand on her and clasped her forearm. He 
felt a pulse pounding but, if it was hers, it was beating 
simultaneously with the throb in his fingers. 

He thought: “Why is she here with me? Every¬ 
where men must have been crazy for her. That’s why 
she’s been a changer, of course.” 

He altered his question aloud, since she had not an¬ 
swered the other. “You both got out?” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“Where’s he?” 

She waited again and her throbbing quickened with 
his. He thought she was not to reply but she did: 
“He’s dead.” 

“Oh!” said Dave. “Oh!” Yet he had to ask more. 
“But not as a result of that?” 


A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 


127 


She replied quickly. “No. What killed him was 
something he did alone. He was that sort, you see, 
always getting into things.” 

“I see,” said Dave and released her. He was satis¬ 
fied. The man, who evidently was the one who had 
meant most to her, was dead; nothing could be more 
final than that. 

“We’ll get out of this,” he said confidently. “Some¬ 
body’s carried out almost every winter that there’s 
skating on the lake.” 

He expected her to ask what happened to the skat¬ 
ers and how long they drifted before being rescued; 
but she did not, so he told her. “If it’s daylight, 
they’re picked up right away, of course. If it’s night, 
half the time the ice drifts back to shore by morning or 
a tug comes out from Chicago and finds you.” 

He realized that she was not hearing him; her 
thought was back in the past where he had sent it. 

“I should have come in,” she said, after a minute. 
“That’s the way with me. I guess I like to get into 
things, too,” she admitted. “You told me about the 
ice the other morning. Why I could see it floating out 
there—out here,” she corrected exhilaratingly and 
stamped a heel on their hard floor. “But I wanted 
to get far out; I thought I’d dare the wind. ‘You 
can’t hurt me! ’ I said. I thought if the ice goes out, 
I’ll go with it but I bet I’ll be all right. I almost 
wanted to take a chance. I get that way sometimes. 
But I should have thought about you.” 

“Me?” said Dave. “Why? What’s there to this? 
We walk around on the ice all night; that’s all.” 

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Fidelia said and Dave 


128 


FIDELIA 


knew she was not regarding dangers of water or of 
cold. She was gazing again toward the flicker of 
Alice’s useless fire; and she was thinking—Dave was 
sure—of her own self and of Alice and him. She knew 
how she drew him; denial of it would be silly; he was 
here because he wanted to be; and she knew that. 
She knew, she must know, that he wished to be with 
her rather than with Alice. 

On the shore, beside Alice’s fire, appeared an oblong 
of light. “They’ve opened a boat house,” said Dave. 
“They’re trying to get out to us with a boat.” 

“That’s good,” Fidelia replied; and he knew that, 
whatever were her feelings the minute before, now 
she wanted the boat to come. But he did not; not 
yet. Away, he wanted to stay away with Fidelia 
Netley; and there was impulse in this desire greater 
than before. It strengthened from what she had told 
him. “He’s dead,” she had said; the man, who had 
meant most to her, was dead. 

Dave had known nothing whatever about him; even 
now Dave did not know so much as his name. It 
made no difference; he was dead. There was a feeling 
of freedom for Dave in that knowledge which surprised 
him. He had not been conscious of a sensation of re¬ 
straint with Fidelia Netley because of a man for whom 
she cared; he became aware that he had had it only 
now when it was lifted from him. He said to himself: 
‘ f There was some one for her; of course I knew there 
had been some one for her. But he’s dead.” 

It cleared away barriers between Fidelia and him, on 
her side. 

He caught himself about and saw, before the boat- 


A BONFIRE AND THE FLOE 


129 


house lights, gleaming spots which he took for electric 
torches in the hands of people who must be pulling a 
boat out over the shore hummocks of ice and snow. 
“They won’t reach us,” he said; and his voice sur¬ 
prised himself with its triumph. 






CHAPTER XII 


“no one else will ever do” 

A LICE was leading Lan Blake and Bill Fraser 
and the others who were helping with the boat. 
It was a row-boat, as that was the heaviest 
craft which they could drag over the hummocks. 
Alice carried a torch and she guided them in the little 
valleys of ice and snow which were like those in which 
Fidelia and Dave had played after watching the sun¬ 
rise. 

Myra was with Alice, holding her hand. Sometimes 
when Lan and his crew rested, Myra spoke to them. 
Alice said nothing to them; she merely showed them 
the way with her light when they were ready to go on. 

She was weak and shaking. “You ought to go back 
and go to bed,” Myra pleaded with her. 

Alice said: “I’m all right. How long is it?” 

Myra knew what she meant; how long was the time 
during which Fidelia and Dave had been together. 
Myra shortened it as much as she dared and said: 
“Half an hour.” Myra bared her hand and felt up 
Alice’s sleeve, making sure that Alice’s body was warm 
and that the shock of her plunge into the water had 
passed. 

“Maybe he hasn’t found her,” Myra said. 

“No,” Alice denied. “He has.” 

In her soul, she was sure of it; David and Fidelia 
were together and it was all over with herself. 

130 


“NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER DO” 131 

She assailed herself with: “I shouldn’t care. If 
he wants her and doesn’t want me, it’s better for me 
to know it now.” But dismay seized her and she felt 
hollow with a sensation as if, physically, some one had 
scooped out her soul. “What’ll I do? What’ll I do?” 

She heard Myra speaking to Lan and she heard him 
reply and heard, too, Bill Fraser saying: “Come on; 
all together again!” 

Myra was pretending for her, and all the rest of them 
were pretending that they must hurry on account of 
the cold; but they all knew that Fidelia and Dave 
would be suffering no more than they, themselves, 
on the shore ice. 

Some one with a torch swung the beam of light, as 
if by accident, upon Alice’s face. She did not care 
what they saw; she could not consider their opinions; 
she felt her life dependent upon this hour. He was her 
life, he who had leaped away from her, never looking 
back, when he had the call to go to Fidelia Netley. It 
was not that he went, it was the way he went which ap¬ 
palled her. He had made, at that moment, nothing of 
their three and a half years of companionship, nothing 
of their betrothal. She had seen him last when she was 
in the water and he was skating away, away. She 
did not believe that he knew she had fallen into the 
water; she would almost have liked to believe it. No; 
she knew that from the instant he decided to go he 
had shut his mind to her. To her, struggling there in 
the water, had come realization of his ecstasy at go¬ 
ing from her to be again with Fidelia Netley. 

“She stayed out on purpose,” Myra accused. 

Alice would not have that, even in her despair. 





132 


FIDELIA 


“No, she didn’t!” Alice thought: “How easy for me 
if she planned these things; how easy, if she meant to 
do them!” But she believed that Fidelia had planned 
this as little as she had planned the shaft of sunlight 
across her hair when she sat in the class-room, as little 
as she could have planned, when she went to the lake 
to see the sunrise, to draw David after her. 

Alice heard the voice of her father. He had just 
come from the city and had learned what had hap¬ 
pened, but he did not understand it. He put his arm 
about Alice. 

“Go back to the house, baby,” he said. “I’ll see 
to this.” 

“You can’t! . . . Papa, papa, don’t make me go 
in!” 

He asked her; “What’s the matter?” 

She told him: “He went to her! When the ice 
blew out, he went to her! ” 

Her father argued: “Of course he went! It’s what 
you’d want him to do! ” 

“Not that way, papa! You didn’t see!” And she 
freed herself from his arm. 

Something about this, her evading his clasp, affected 
him more. “I won’t do,” he realized. It made him 
feel how she wanted David’s clasp when she would not 
bear his; and he thought: “No one else will ever do.” 

He stayed a few paces from her, watching her. He 
reckoned: “She’s twenty-two. That’s the age her 
mother married.” And his feeling summoned memory 
of his wife, when she was twenty-two and he became 
her husband. He recollected what he had learned of 
the love within his wife’s heart which she had never let 


“NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER DO” 133 


herself betray till she and he lived in the closeness of 
marriage; and he stared at his daughter and realized: 
“She has those feelings for him. She has more even 
than she’s shown him. She’s—like that!” And he 
could not bear to think any longer. He went and 
helped the boys with the boat. 

When they reached the water, and launched the 
boat, he prevented his daughter from stepping aboard. 
“No; you stay here.” So Lan and Bill Fraser went 
alone. 

Alice climbed to the top of a hummock and slowly 
moved her torch back and forth before her. 

It became almost unbearable to Sothron to watch his 
girl standing there, stretched upon tiptoe to reach as 
high as possible with her light and then bringing it 
low to the snow and next drawing it from right to 
left before her breast. Sothron had come to under¬ 
stand: “She’s trying to make him think of her.” 

At moments, hatred of Dave Herrick seized Sothron 
and he defied David’s power over his girl. “Let him 
go to whoever he likes.” Then Sothron would pray: 
“He has to come back to her! He has to come back to 
my girl!” 

Alice had no idea how long she remained out upon 
the ice. The night divided itself into a period while 
the row-boat searched and she watched the movement 
of its light as it worked this way and that between the 
floes and another period after the boat had come in 
and her father had sent for a tug from Chicago. 

At some time before midnight, they were all back in 
the house—all but Fidelia and David. They were all 
having coffee and hot supper; the odor reached Alice 




134 


FIDELIA 


in her room. Myra brought her a cup of coffee but 
she didn’t drink it. She set it on the sill of her window 
where she watched in the dark. 

Soon the house was quiet; they were all gone, except 
Myra who for a time sat in the dark beside her and 
then lay down on the bed. Myra went to sleep. Alice 
did not. 

Sometimes she imagined Fidelia and David both 
lost; sometimes she supposed Fidelia lost and David 
safe; and sometimes Fidelia safe and David had been 
drowned. But she believed none of this; she believed 
them both safe and together; and consequently, while 
she waited, she tried to recast her life; but she could 
not. 

How she depended upon David! Every plan, every 
purpose, every hope, every dream was hers only with 
him. When she thought: “Before I knew him, I was 
happy enough. I can go back to that,” and when she 
tried to go back, in her mind, it seemed to her she 
had had nothing then. No; nothing seemed to her as 
of any account before that day she saw him, serious 
and awkward in their first class-room together; when 
some one tittered at a reply he made, her feelings flew 
to his defense. She waited in the class-room and spoke 
to the earnest, fine-looking, self-conscious boy who 
did not know how to fit in with a lot of light-minded 
classmates. 

It seemed to Alice now that, at that moment, she be¬ 
came happy; she began to care greatly; she found 
something real for her to do. And now it was her 
life! While she sat at the window, waiting, sometimes 
she longed for his arms, his voice, his lips; sometimes 


NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER DO” 135 


she cried to herself: “If I haven’t him, what will I 
do?” How would she fill her days? For what would 
she rise in the morning? For whom would she go out? 
For whose call on the telephone, or for whose ring at 
the door, would she listen? For whom would she plan 
and hope and dream? 

At times, since that morning he went to the shore 
with Fidelia and during the days between in which 
she had become aware of a holding” him, she had 
thought she could tell him, if he wanted to go to 
Fidelia Netley, to go. But this night warned her that 
she could not; and she decided, sitting there, that no 
word or act of hers ever would free him; she would 
hold what she had till he made an end between them. 




CHAPTER XIII 


THE THRONE OF SATURN 

‘ ATURN! ” said Dave to Fidelia; they were point- 
ing out stars. 

“Which one?” 

He showed her. 

“How does that go?” said Fidelia. 

“About in the same path as the moon, if the moon 
was up.” 

“I remember,” Fidelia continued. She had not been 
thinking about the movement of the planet. 

“ ‘Up from Earth’s center, through the Seventh Gate,’ ” 
she repeated, 

“ ‘I rose and on the throne of Saturn sate.’ ” 

She asked: “Do you mind saying it ‘sate’ to rhyme 
with ‘gate’?” 

“No,” said Dave. “Go on.” 

“ ‘And many a knot unravel’d by the Road, 

But not the master-knot of human Fate. 

“ ‘There was the Door to which I found no Key; 

There was the veil through which I could not see. 
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 

There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.’ ” 

She asked: “That’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She loved 
the run of the words; she liked the fatalistic thought. 
It excited her pleasantly. 

13 b 


137 


THE THRONE OF SATURN 

“You know some more?” Dave asked. He liked it, 
too—with her. It was pagan philosophy and the verse 
of a voluptuary; Dave had heard his father call ana¬ 
thema upon the poem which extolled pleasure as the 
greatest good in life. 

“A lot of it,” Fidelia said. “I love it. I’ve the 
book with the Vedder drawings. He has a wonderful 
page opposite those verses—some one seated on Saturn 
with the rings below him and all the worlds whirling 
about. 

“ ‘And that inverted Bowl they call the sky,’ ” 
she quoted, 

“ ‘Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die, 

Lift not your hands to It—for It 
As impotently rolls as you and I.’ ” 

Dave asked her: “Do you think that?” 

“Why, I don’t feel cooped at all. Do you?” 

“No,” said Dave and smiled in the starlight. She 
never bothered about the big idea of her verses, or 
of any other matter, he noticed. She liked them for 
the sensation they supplied. And he liked that in 
her. 

He was light-minded and happy. He thought that 
his shore self would hardly know this Dave Herrick 
who walked the floe with Fidelia Netley. The boy, 
who had played with her in the ice caves, would know 
him; this David Herrick was that boy who now knew 
Fidelia much better. They had talked together a 
thousand things; and with each, Fidelia had more de¬ 
lighted him. 










138 


FIDELIA 


She said nothing profound; that was it! She never 
even tried to; the idea of being profound could not 
occur to her. She thought and said wholly natural, 
agreeable things, not like any one else. “She’s just 
natural,” he said to himself and soon he felt the cor¬ 
ollary to it: “No one else I ever knew was natural.” 

Not even Alice; no. He thought how he had tried 
to throw off the constraint of his father’s ideas when he 
had seized Alice that night he halted her car by the 
graveyard and how she, though she submitted to him, 
had been more afraid than he for himself and how she 
had doubted him. 

He thought: “Suppose I’d had her in my arms!” 
This “her” was the girl now beside him. The idea, 
tremendously stirred him. He tried to forbid it, there¬ 
fore, but it returned and returned. He thought: 
“Fidelia, she would have made me sure!” 

He was amazingly untired though now, as the height 
of the sword of Orion showed, it was midnight. In 
the north, the Dipper tipped in its turn about the Pole 
star. All the heavens were sparkling clear and still 
with the silences of space. Calm had come upon the 
lake when the west wind had dropped to a varying 
breeze made mild from its journey over open water. 

Hours ago Fidelia and Dave had lost the land sounds 
and now they drifted so far that separate lights upon 
the shore no longer could be identified. There was 
the aura of Chicago to the south; there was the streak 
of Sheridan Road. Somewhere on that strip of beach 
were the Sothrons’ windows but they had become so 
distant that they bothered Dave no longer. Alice’s 
useless bonfire had burnt out. 


139 


THE THRONE OF SATURN 

Gone also, was the light of the searching row-boat. 
It always was so far away that, when at last it gave 
up and went in, Fidelia and Dave felt more relief than 
anything else. They were glad that they no longer 
were causing others danger and discomfort. 

Dave himself felt little discomfort, being warmly 
dressed in a heavy suit with a sweater under his coat. 
He was sure that Fidelia was less warm. 

“With this on?” she exclaimed when he argued with 
her. 

“This” was a shaggy sport skirt and jacket with 
woolen vest. She had knitted gloves, almost as heavy 
as his; and she wore a white tarn. She explained that 
she wore these at Minneapolis “when it got really cold, 
not just barely freezing like to-night.” 

She added “Imagine me cold!” 

Dave couldn’t imagine it; her splendid body must 
always be warm. 

It was for Fidelia a night when she felt like going 
to the point of exhaustion, when she gloried in giving 
herself to the sensation of spending her strength and 
feeling how much more she had to spend. She enjoyed 
this sensation particularly in company; and in David 
Herrick she found endurance equal to her own. 

Her impulse of self-reproach at bringing him here, 
had passed; he was with her because he wanted to be, 
instead of being with Alice Sothron in that warm house 
now lost amid the lights of the distant shore. Fidelia 
did not feel herself to blame more than she had been 
to blame for his following her to the shore for the sun¬ 
rise. 

Since people blamed her for that, likely they would 








140 


FIDELIA 


blame her for this; but now she forgot them. There 
was no use of thinking about them until morning; here 
she was adrift under the stars with the man she most 
liked of all she had met since—since— 

Her mind went back to that man who had been with 
her in that other event, something like this—to that 
friend who, so she had told David Herrick, was dead; 
and her feeling did not except him. She did not yet 
know David Herrick nearly so well; but what she 
knew, she liked better. And she had thought she had 
loved that other man. 

“ ‘He’s certainly a contrast to S,’ ” she quoted to 
herself. They were her own words she was quoting, 
those which she wrote in her diary the night she met 
David Herrick. “ ‘He has will and character. He’s 
innocent and strong.’ ” 

“Character,” she reflected with herself. It seemed 
to her that she had come to Northwestern with a de¬ 
termination to make her expedition with character this 
time. The innocence of this strong man beside her ap¬ 
pealed to her, also. For plainly he was innocent, not 
only of personal impurity, but even of the smaller self- 
indulgences; she felt that, on the other morning be¬ 
side their caves of ice, she had set him really to play 
for the first time in his life. Undoubtedly he had 
taken part in games many times; but that morning for 
the first time she had freed his feeling to the spirit 
of play. 

She felt: “That’s what he wants more than any¬ 
thing else in the world; and he didn’t know it. Alice 
Sothron didn’t know it; or, if she did, she couldn’t 
give it to him. I can.” 


THE THRONE OF SATURN 


141 


That, to Fidelia, was merely a fact. “I can.” She 
could; and Alice could not. Another fact was: “He 
wants me.” The corollary of that fact was that he 
had ceased to want Alice. 

Fidelia felt these facts. What she was to do about 
them—or if she was to do anything about them—was 
a matter for the future which had a way, so Fidelia 
had learned, of taking care of itself. One did things, 
in the future, which one could not possibly imagine to¬ 
day. She thought of what she herself had done. 

In a way, she had come here to clear herself of 
that. “Character,” she said to herself. “That’s what 
I want this time.” 

Dave Herrick walked beside her. He did not clasp 
her; he did not touch her, unnecessarily; nor did he 
contrive the excuses for close contact with her which 
another man—which any other man in Fidelia’s ex¬ 
perience—would have arranged. He did not know that 
his constraint upon himself—his being there and yet 
keeping himself from her—stirred her far more than 
could any common clasp. 

She sang: 


“Oh what so rare, dear, 

As a day of sunshine; 

The sky is dear at last 

The rain and storm are past.” 

The English verse of the warm “Sole Mio.” He 
sang: he had learned that night not merely the verse 
but how to sing—sing! He had learned it from her 
there on the floe in the dark and cold. 

Like the warm sun, her “Sole Mio,” Fidelia kept 





142 


FIDELIA 


aglow by the slow expending of her strength; she was 
happy. All other considerations she had put off until 
morning—all but one. 

This was the star which David had pointed out to 
her in the east—Saturn, the star of her beautiful verse, 
yet the baleful star, the wandering planet of mis¬ 
fortune. 

“That’s Saturn?” she asked him, when their song 
was done. 

“Yes.” 

“You’re sure?” 

“I know it. Why?” 

She did not tell him. It might mean nothing; of 
course it was nothing; sensible people laughed at such 
ideas; yet she wished that Saturn was not the star 
ascendant to-night. 

Dave left her side and walked alone. Sometimes, 
when he did this, he became drowsy while he walked 
and half dreamed. It seemed to him that Alice was 
crying and he was trying to comfort her. She seemed 
to be in his arms and she was shaken with sobs be¬ 
cause some one had hurt her. He tried to comfort her; 
then he would realize that he could not because he 
was the one who hurt her. 

When this roused him, he thought of his father and 
of Paul, the Apostle, and of the lust after the flesh of 
which he was accused for his desire for Alice. Now 
he desired, not Alice, but Fidelia and this must be lust 
after the flesh, if any passion was. 

For in comparison with his desire for Fidelia, his 
love for Alice had been sober and responsible; its in¬ 
ception was serious and timid and it had grown, not so 


THE THRONE OF SATURN 


143 


much in intensity, as by spread of their interests to¬ 
gether till now it held idea of children and of a home 
as well as of work in which their hearts would be to¬ 
gether. 

With Fidelia he felt nothing of this. He wanted to 
take her away; he wanted her all to himself where no 
one could come. He pictured a warm, pleasant, in¬ 
dolent place where she and he would live in love. 

Love? Love? Not in the love of which his father 
always talked; not in the love of God. He wanted to 
live with this wonderful girl in the love of the flesh—in 
what his father would call low, sensual sin. He 
wanted to marry her, of course; but marriage only 
made more mockery of such sin as he desired. It 
could not change the essence; David, son of Ephraim 
Herrick, knew that. 

But that night there in the dark under the stars he 
planned how he might take Fidelia to his place of 
love. 





CHAPTER XIV 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 

HE tug from Chicago picked them up at dawn. 



The captain had coffee heated and had his 


JL cabin, with fresh blankets, ready to be turned 
over to the lady. 

Fidelia drank a big cup of coffee and ate two large 
sandwiches. She lay down in the blankets and slept 
soundly through the two hours the tug spent in buffet¬ 
ing its way back to the harbor. The captain, who 
was an Irishman named Maloney with a wife and five 
children—a fact which he frequently mentioned as 
proof of his knowledge of what was best for the lady 
(“Saints presarve us, but isn’t she the grand beauty?”) 
—forbade any one to make a noise and he prepared to 
stand guard personally, after the tug docked, so that 
“the young thing” could have her sleep out. But 
Fidelia was awake and she emerged from the blankets 
pink and lovely. She delighted Maloney and all the' 
crew, and made them get into the picture the news¬ 
paper men took of her. 

Mrs. Fansler took charge of Fidelia when Maloney 
had let “the darlint” go. She had sat up, or had 
dozed beside her telephone all night, had Mrs. Fansler; 
and when she got news that the tug was returning to 
Chicago, she had hastened to the city. 

“Child,” said Mrs. Fansler, kissing and clasping her. 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 145 

“My child, what would the world be without you?” 

“You stayed up all night—for me?” Fidelia said, 
after Mrs. Fansler told her. 

Mrs. Fansler did not blame Fidelia at all; having to 
blame some one, she found fault with Dave whereupon 
Fidelia praised him and yet managed not to offend Mrs. 
Fansler. 

Dave wondered how she did it; and he decided it 
was not so much by words, or by tact, as by just being 
herself and being again in Mrs. Fansler’s clasp. For 
any one who once had had her, the world would surely 
be drab without her, Dave thought. 

He walked slowly up the plank to the dock in a man¬ 
ner which caused the city press reporter to comment 
that David Herrick was visibly weakened by the night’s 
experience. 

Dave was weakened. He had slept upon the tug 
but not soundly, as Fidelia had; and he had gone 
through an experience far more tremendous than the 
exhaustion from exposure. The throb of the engines, 
the warmth of the bunk in which he had lain, the smell 
of lubricating oil and coffee and the gray daylight 
had begun the business of returning him from under 
that inverted bowl of stars and the throne of Saturn, 
where one might dream and plan and suppose, and had 
brought him back to the realities of black river docks, 
with grimy warehouses wherein were telephones. He 
must use one of these to call the Sothron’s number and 
speak to Alice. What, what in the world was he to 
say to her? 

“It’s over,” he felt, as he stepped ashore; it was the 
end of his ecstatic sensation of “I’m away” with which 






146 FIDELIA 

he had left the shore. He was responsible to others 
once more. 

The day being Sunday, the docks were quiet; the 
bridges over the river bore an unhurried, discreet traffic 
and less than the weekday haze of smoke hung in the 
sunny air. Dave always had resented the enforced 
dullness of the self-conscious goodness of Sunday. He 
did not want to feel particularly “good” according to a 
calendar. The smugness of Sunday seemed never so 
obnoxious as now. Even yet he had no idea how to 
speak to Alice. 

When at last he had her at the telephone, he found 
his task considerably lessened by the fact that Alice 
had learned that he was safe and Fidelia also was safe 
and that they had been picked up together. The tug 
had imparted this information to the watch at the light¬ 
house on the government pier who had telephoned it 
ashore before the tug turned into the harbor. 

Alice asked him: “You found Fidelia right away?” 

“Right away,” he told her and added: “Then we 
saw your fire.” 

He told her: “Mrs. Fansler is here.” 

“Down there?” said Alice. 

Dave explained. “She heard from the coast sta¬ 
tion that the tug was headed in; she came right down.” 

He felt cheap after he had told Alice this. He re¬ 
lated it because he was uncomfortable. He had the 
right to let her know that Mrs. Fansler was now with 
Fidelia but he had no right to suggest that Mrs. Fansler 
had done something which Alice also might have done. 
So he said hastily: “You sent the tug, Alice! We’d 
be half way to Michigan, if it wasn’t for you!” 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 147 


Alice was silent; and he thought: “What’s the mat¬ 
ter with what I said?” Then he realized how he had 
said “we” for Fidelia and himself. 

Alice said: “I tried to go out with you, Davey. I 
tried to jump across the water after you. I fell 
in.” 

He asked: “What? I didn’t know that. How’re 
you now? Why you had it worse than we.” There 
was that “we” again, that suddenly intimate “we” for 
Fidelia and himself. 

Alice defied it. “I’m all right. I just changed my 
clothes and came out again. I was on the ice a lot of 
the night!” 

“Yes,” said David and suddenly he cried: “Alice!” 

She made no response but he heard her sobbing. 
Then she shut the sound from him by muffling the 
transmitter. He cried: “Alice! Alice! I’m coming 
there!” 

She replied: “No; you’ve her to take home!” 

“Mrs. Fansler’s doing that.” 

Alice cried: “I’m all right. You have to sleep, I 
have to. Davey, to-morrow—to-morrow!” and she 
hung up. 

Dave did not go to her; while Mrs. Fansler took 
Fidelia in a cab to Evanston, Dave went alone on the 
elevated. It satisfied him as a sort of compromise be¬ 
tween going with Fidelia and going to Alice. To¬ 
morrow ! What would to-morrow mean to Alice and to 
him? 

To-morrow, which was Monday morning, he met her 
on the edge of the campus ten minutes before class 
time. It was his best recourse for the day, to meet her 










148 FIDELIA 

for the first time in public and as though nothing had 
happened. 

Alice drove up that morning and, at noon, she drove 
home so David and she did not have a walk together 
to the car line. They were together only on the cam¬ 
pus and in classes, where outwardly everything was the 
same. That eleven o’clock class, with Fidelia in the 
room with David and Alice, was especially the same— 
outwardly. There was Fidelia, warm and glorious 
with color in the edge of the sunlight; there was David, 
serious and busy with his note-book. Alice sat quiet, 
as usual, vaguely hearing the words of the lecture 
while she watched David. 

Her peace and dreaming satisfaction had departed 
from this hour ever since Fidelia Netley had come; to¬ 
day it was become for Alice an hour of ordeal requiring 
her to sit still when she wanted to leap up and run from 
the room, when she wanted to scream, to do—anything 

Every day that week, until Saturday, she subjected 
herself to that ordeal and went through it outwardly 
quiet and calm, whatever her nerves were. On Satur¬ 
day was the dance, the Tau Gamma “formal,” which 
she was to lead with David and where Fidelia would 
be. 

Alice had a new dress for the dance and a new 
bracelet, a narrow band of gold with sapphires of the 
blue of her eyes. She had new, silver slippers with 
new buckles which her father, himself, selected. He 
had her meet him in town on Saturday morning for a 
shopping excursion; and she knew perfectly well what 
he was doing. He was trying, by money, to help her 
fight Fidelia. 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 149 


“I’ve had a little luck this week,” he told her, to ex¬ 
plain his purpose otherwise. “Have anything you 
want.” But she did no buying herself. 

In the afternoon, she took all her new things in a 
suitcase to Willard where she was to have supper with 
Myra and afterwards dress in Myra’s room. Lan and 
Dave would call for them with a cab to take them to 
the dance; such was their arrangement ever since Alice 
had taught David to dance in freshman year and the 
four of them began going together. 

Myra was out when Alice arrived and Myra’s room¬ 
mate, who was doubling with another girl that night in 
order to lend Alice her bed, already had departed. 
Alice lay down, glad to be quiet and alone; it was going 
to be hard for her to talk to Myra but that would be 
better than to have to deal with the concern of her 
mother and father for her while she made ready for the 
dance. What was happening to her, was her own af¬ 
fair; no one, no one could help her, however well they 
meant, however hard it was for them to have to stand 
by and watch it happen. Whatever any one said or 
did, only made it worse for her. 

Myra’s room was in the modern, pleasant wing of 
Willard with windows to the south through which 
slanted yellow streaks of late afternoon sunshine. 
Sunshine! How often Alice thought of sunshine as an 
ally of Fidelia, as something which shone on Fidelia’s 
hair. A window was partly open, for the day was 
warm for March; there had been a thaw all week so 
that the snow was gone from the walks and the lawns, 
leaving damp spots here and there. 

To-day the college had come outdoors. Groups 


150 


FIDELIA 


were in front of every house; and on the lawns, or in 
the street, boys were throwing baseballs; motorcars 
were loafing by with windows down or with side cur¬ 
tains off; and girls and boys were idling along the 
walks. 

Alice could see “twos” strolling, some toward the 
lake, some up Orrington Avenue toward the campus, 
some toward the town—toward the booths and tables 
of “Theo’s,” where the doors would be standing open 
to-day and where every chair would be filled and there 
would be the clatter of students, four at a table, treat¬ 
ing and being treated to sodas and sundaes. 

The thought of “Theo’s” brought to Alice an especial 
association with Dave; it was where he first had 
“treated” her back in timid, freshman days. But oh, 
every place about the college held especial association 
for David and her. 

She heard the quick, cheery cadenza of the Tau 
Gamma whistle which announced that a boy on the 
street was hailing a Tau Gamma and probably wanted 
her to walk with him. Alice sat up and saw Myra’s 
small, alert figure hurrying toward Willard; and the 
Tau Gamma whistle sounded again with more of a de¬ 
mand in its invitation. Alice saw Myra wait; then she 
saw Lan. 

Alice lay down. David used to hail her like that; 
but he had not this week. He used to herald his com¬ 
ing to her house by the Tau Gamma whistle, which she 
had taught him long ago. This week, he had be¬ 
come so quiet and formal and he had avoided being 
alone with her. 

A maid knocked and brought in a florist’s box which 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 151 


proved to contain red roses, with a card for Alice: 
“From David.” 

She used to gasp and feel happy, and half guilty, 
when he sent her long-stemmed, extravagant flowers 
like these; now she thought: “He wanted to send 
them to Fidelia.” 

Myra entered and sat on the bed beside her saying: 
“Alice, I’ve found something out.” 

She seemed to be suppressing some triumph, was 
Myra; and Alice looked at her with dull wonder. 

“About Fidelia,” Myra particularized. “I’ve been 
talking to Roy Wheen.” 

“Who?” said Alice. 

“She asked him for to-night,” Myra replied, know¬ 
ing that Alice had heard the name but was puz¬ 
zled over Roy Wheen’s significance. “Why, do you 
suppose?” 

When Alice hazarded nothing, Myra pronounced: 
“He knows about her.” 

“What?” said Alice sitting up. 

“You know I told you that night she showed up 
here,” Myra proceeded, “that something had happened 
to her. Well, it had. It happened in Idaho.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Roy Wheen told me.” 

“What—what happened?” 

“He wouldn’t tell me that. Listen. He’s a sort of 
pathetic soul, you know. He’s hardly spoken to a 
sorority girl, that I ever saw. I doubt if he’s been to 
a dance since he’s come here.” 

Try as she could, Alice did not succeed in keeping 
her thought upon Roy Wheen; it flew to the time when 


152 


FIDELIA 


David Herrick was a sort of “pathetic soul,” daring 
hardly to speak to a sorority girl and when he had 
never been to a dance. 

Alice heard: “Fidelia certainly picks up with the 
strangest souls . . . but it seemed to me she must have 
some special reason for Roy Wheen ... so I went 
over to the library ... he was there and I came out 
when he did. 

“He spoke to me and we walked ... I mentioned 
Fidelia and he got fussed red. He’s crazy about her, 
of course. I said, ‘Didn’t you know her before she 
came here?’ 

“He said: ‘Yes. That is—’ 

“ ‘What?’ I said. 

“Alice, he got fussed redder and redder. He hadn’t 
exactly met her, it seemed; but she came to his home 
town. That’s in Idaho—Mondora; it’s hardly on the 
map. I had to let up on him as soon as he suspected 
I was after something. He wouldn’t say a thing. 
Closed like a clam! She’s got him; he’s protecting 
her! That’s his big thrill! Alice, it happened sum¬ 
mer before last after she left Stanford. I ran him 
down on the time—” 

Alice stirred with shame at herself. For the min¬ 
ute she had become avid, hopeful to hear something 
base about Fidelia, something which would destroy 
Fidelia Netley. But now she cried: “Myra, sup¬ 
pose something did happen! Isn’t she trying to live 
it down!” 

Myra was harder. “How? By sneaking Dave 
away—” 

“She doesn’t. He does it, Myra! Oh, you wouldn’t 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 153 

have gone to Roy Wheen for yourself, My! You 
wouldn’t have thought of it. But for me!” 

Myra denied. “I didn’t do it for you, Allie. I 
did it against her. I’d stoop lower, gladly, to show 
her up to Dave!” 

Alice seized Myra’s hands. “You’re not going to 
tell that to Dave?” she said, aghast. 

“Not yet,” said Myra; and Alice had to be satisfied 
with that. 

They dressed, helping each other; and they refrained 
from talking much about the dance. Neither referred 
directly to Fidelia again until they were both ready 
and waiting for the moment when David and Lan 
would come for them. 

Alice had on all her new things; and plain little 
Myra, with her square, solid-looking shoulders, com¬ 
pared herself and adored Alice for her soft, slight 
gracefulness. 

“You’re lovely; and your skin’s like satin to-night. 
That’s just the way to do your hair.” She kissed 
Alice. “You’ve never had a dress like that—” 

“No; nor slippers and buckles and bracelet,” Alice 
said. “Father got them for me to-day,” she explained. 
“He bought them to make me beat Fidelia to-night. 
But I’ll not; and she won’t have even a new dress.” 

Fidelia did not. She wore that evening a dancing 
dress, not old, not new. It was pale green, of such 
shade that it seemed like silver when the light was 
low and when the lights were bright its sheen came 
in contrast to the clear, pale pink of Fidelia’s shoulders, 
the deeper pink of her cheeks and the rich hues of her 
hair. 


154 


FIDELIA 


She flushed slightly when she danced; she loved to 
dance; she loved the warmth of it with the movement 
and the rhythm. Dave, dancing with her, clasped her 
hand with palm pleasantly moist against his palm; his 
arm which surrounded her felt the rhythmic draw and 
relax of her body, as she danced and her bosom rose 
with her full, even breathing. 

He had anticipated much in a dance with her; he 
remembered how he had felt when she skated with 
him, how she put all her body into it in a way unlike 
other girls; but he had not been able to anticipate this 
pleasure from her feeling for rhythm, for motion slow 
or swifter but always positive yet effortless, powerful 
but never pulling upon him. She never tried to “lead”; 
he never thought of her as possibly trying. She fol¬ 
lowed him perfectly; always the initiative, the direc¬ 
tion, the choice of step was his. Sometimes she warned 
him of couples threatening to collide in approach from 
a direction in which he could not see. She did this by 
sudden, pleasant pressure of her fingers about his; and 
as soon as she had warned him, she gave herself to 
his guiding again. 

“Don’t you ever lead?” he asked her. 

“Not dancing with a man,” she replied; and after 
she had thought a minute, “nor with girls either, I 
guess.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t like it. Do you?” 

“For you?” said Dave. “No.” And he clasped 
her closer as he gave himself to the joy of the dance 
with her; and he felt new delight in her at his realiza¬ 
tion of the docility which underlay her nature. She 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 155 

was strong and possessed of endurance beyond any 
other girl he knew; and she would of herself under¬ 
take risks and adventures; she liked to submit her¬ 
self to hazard; yet she was a most manageable person, 
too. 

Imagining himself married to her, he felt his way 
would always be pleasant; his way would be hers. 

He felt the flattery of others’ attention. Every 
one had to look at her; she was glorious to see and 
far more satisfactory to have in one’s arms. He 
thought how he had pretended that she was a Goddess 
when he was following her in the little ice valleys of 
the shore at sunrise; now she was too close, she was 
too warm, too much within his arms for him to con¬ 
sider her like that. 

The exultation of “A Woman Waits for Me!” ran 
in his veins. He felt Fidelia Contains all, nothing is 
lacking . . . warm blooded and sufficient for me.” 

Sufficient for him! He had never suspected what 
sufficiency might be until he had found Fidelia. Here 
she was, warm and lovely and strong and docile. 

No; he had never felt sufficiency like this; not with 
Alice. But he did not let himself think definitely of 
Alice . . . not until the music had ceased. 

He sat with Fidelia, with others about them, during 
the interval before the next dance; when the music be¬ 
gan again, he sought Alice who had been left by her 
last partner at a further corner of the floor. He felt 
relaxed and he tried to freshen himself for Alice; but 
he realized, “She knows”; and even as he crossed the 
floor, his mind was on his next dance with Fidelia. 
For he would have two. 


156 


FIDELIA 


It had been a matter of much dispute with himself 
how many dances with her he could take; in fact, 
he had argued whether he should engage Fidelia for 
any dances; but his wish had conquered and he had 
reenforced it by the argument that it would look 
“queer” to the college. 

When he reached Alice, she was sitting alone with 
deserted chairs on both sides. “Ours” he said and 
tried to make it sound in the old way when “ours” told 
a thrilling thing and his pulses pricked with his im¬ 
patience for her. 

She sat looking up at him and his eyes went from 
hers to her white, slender shoulders. Her new dress 
was blue, almost the color of the sapphires in the new 
bracelet on her slender arm. The slightness, the white¬ 
ness of her, which this blue accentuated, used to stir 
him, and her sweetness with that look of love which 
would fill her eyes. 

It was not there now, that look; in its place, fear. 
She tried to smile. He thought with alarm: “She’s 
going to cry.” 

But Alice didn’t; she stood up and gave her right 
hand to his left and he put his arm about her. 

How small she seemed; how cool; how dully she 
danced. He gripped her tighter to rouse her and she 
responded at the instant but after a second, it was 
the same as before. Her right hand, clasping his left 
hand and extended, pulled at him to go this way, now 
that way, in response to her instinct to guide him. It 
offended him out of all proportion to its gentle impulse. 
Naturally she did this; she had taught him to dance; 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 157 

and this unconscious reminder of their first days to¬ 
gether used to stir tenderness. Now he thought of 
Fidelia, warm, all alive but following, docile to him. 

Alice tried to talk. She said: “Don’t you like the 
music?” . He replied: “It’s great.” 

They might be strangers, he and she who had shared 
three and a half years so closely, who had come to be¬ 
lieve they were meant for each other and so had been 
preparing to marry on the twenty-second of June. 

She felt him trying to rouse her; and, responding, 
she tried to satisfy him; then she ceased to try. She 
realized: “It’s no use; I can’t be Fidelia.” 

She dragged in the dance which become more and 
more unendurable. They danced near Fidelia who 
now had Roy Wheen for a partner. He was not a 
good dancer but Fidelia was doing well with him; he 
was flushed and excited. “He’s happy,” Alice thought; 
and this sight of them seemed to deny Myra’s story 
that Roy Wheen “knew” something about Fidelia and 
that she was afraid of him and that was why he was 
here. Nothing in Fidelia’s manner suggested the 
forced or perfunctory with Roy Wheen or hinted at 
fear. Fidelia seemed to be having a good time, too. 

Alice thought: “But you can’t tell anything about 
her.” And feeling that Dave ceased to try to rouse 
her and that he did not care, Alice suddenly had a 
wild, insane impulse to make a scene; for the instant 
it shook her; it seemed that it must conquer her and 
she must drop David’s hand and thrust his arm from 
about her and she must step to Roy Wheen and stop 
Fidelia and him from dancing, stop everybody from 




158 


FIDELIA 


dancing and hush the music and in the silence make 
Roy Wheen tell what he knew. 

Dave felt her shaking. “What is it?” he said. 

“David, Fm sick.” 

At his exclamation, she declared: “I’m sick, sick. 
That’s all.” 

“You want me to take you home?” 

“No! No! I’ll lie down in the dressing room. 
Don’t bother about me.” 

“Alice!” he protested. 

They had come to the edge of the ball-room and she 
slipped away into the dressing room where she re¬ 
mained until midnight when, as the clock turned to 
morning and Sunday, the Tau Gamma formal was 
over. 

Dave had had his other regular dance with Fidelia; 
then he had claimed an “extra”—the unnumbered 
dance, not on the program, which the orchestra leader 
suddenly announced, “The Tau Gamma extra.” 

For this dance, each man asked a partner from the 
floor without pre-arrangement; but for three years 
Dave and Alice had danced it together. To-night he 
had Fidelia. 

It was a feature dance, always a waltz with emo¬ 
tional music; and at the first encore, the ball-room 
lights went out except for one cluster of colored bulbs 
at the center of the room which formed the Tau 
Gamma shield; so everybody danced slowly and sil¬ 
ently in the dim glow of the colored lights. 

Following that dance, Dave cast off discretion. 
He “cut in” on Fidelia’s partners and obtained three 
“encores.” He knew that everybody was watching 


THE RETURN FROM THE THRONE 159 

him; he knew that somebody was sure to bring word 
to Alice in the dressing room. 

Alice and Dave with Myra and Lan drove together 
back to Williard Hall. Alice was “all right now.” 
She had become calm, in danger neither of crying 
nor of giving way to insane impulse. She leaned for¬ 
ward as they drove, not to be nearer to Dave, who 
faced her on an opposite seat, but to feel the cool of 
the air through the open window of the door. 

Nobody talked. There was not a word since Dave’s 
inquiry about Alice, when she had come out to the 
cab; and that, Myra had answered. 

Dave and Lan got out first when the cab halted at 
the south door of Willard where the watchman checked 
the return of the girls who had had permission away 
for the evening. Myra stepped down but Alice stayed 
in her seat; and Dave leaned in and asked: “You 
want to go home?” 

She shook her head. Myra whispered to Lan and, 
when Dave stepped back, Lan offered: “I’ll take 
you home, Alice.” 

She replied: “Ask him to go on a little.” And 
Lan understood that she meant the driver and, also, 
that she did not want Myra and himself. So the 
cab proceeded a few feet to clear the entrance: Myra 
went into the building and Lan departed to the walk 
by the street. Dave followed the cab and got in and 
sat beside Alice. Behind them, other cabs halted, let 
out girls who called happy good nights and the cabs 
disappeared. 

Alice’s voice came to David from the dark. “You 
want to kiss me?” 


160 


FIDELIA 


It was an honest, serious, deadly serious question, 
impossible for him to answer falsely or lightly or to 
evade. 

“Oh, I want to want to,” he said. 

“You want—” she took another word—“you would 
like to hold me as you—” again she changed her 
word—“as we did that night Fidelia came?” 

“Not now.” 

“You want,” said Alice’s voice and each syllable was 
deliberate and distinct. She had thought out each 
word while she lay her hours in the dressing room 
and now, with each word of this doom, she thought 
out each again before speaking it, “to be free of me?” 

He did not answer and she struck him. Her little 
clenched fist came down upon his knee. Otherwise 
they had no contact at all. 

“You say it! You’ve got to say it! You’ve got 
to! I never will! Never! Never!” 

“Yes,” said Dave. 

She opened the door beside her; it was the door 
away from the Hall. She whispered: “You are! 
You hear me? You hear me?” 

“Yes,” said Dave. 

She was on the ground and, running about the rear 
of the cab, she disappeared into the Hall. 


CHAPTER XV 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 

S NELGROVE said to Dave toward the end of the 
next week: “Boy, somebody has sure made 
you one bear of a salesman! You slipped off 
form for a spell after your little trip out on the ice; 
but now! Zowie!” Snelgrove sorted over the sheaf 
of orders, with checks for deposits paid, which Dave 
brought in. “Somebody has sure spoken to you! 
And all I. E. Snelgrove hopes is ‘Speak to him again, 
girl! Speak to him again!’ ” 

This was Snelgrove’s most direct reference to Dave’s 
personal affairs. Business was booming, partly be¬ 
cause of the coming of the warm days of spring with 
their call to the car and partly as a result of the new 
energy with which Dave worked. It amazed himself 
quite as much as it did Snelgrove. He felt that he 
could do anything; yes, for Fidelia, he could do any¬ 
thing. 

He worried no more about the increase in price of 
the new Hamilton six; in so far as he worried at all 
now, it was as to whether the factory would make good 
on their promises of the car, and deliver on time. 

To be sure, it bothered him at first not to have 
money of his own for his personal expenses; for he 
recognized that, when he drew money at the office, it 
either came from Mr. Fuller’s loan or else was taken 
from the deposits paid on the orders for cars not yet 
161 


162 FIDELIA 

delivered. But the use of this money disturbed his 
partner not at all. 

“It’s only business, boy,” he assured Dave indul¬ 
gently and in a tone which conveyed wonderment at 
his junior partner’s perplexity in the presence of the 
soundest business practice. 

Mr. Snelgrove attested the complete comfort in his 
mind by liberally increasing the scale of his personal 
expenditures; he purchased several new suits; he 
bought himself a diamond; and lent to his friends with 
more lavish hand. 

For it was plain that the good tidings that Irving 
again was flush, had spread from the Turkish baths 
and cabarets to the “barrel” and “flop” houses along 
south State and Clark streets whence appeared the 
more picturesque of the down and out comrades of 
Mr. Snelgrove’s youth. For each, he cheerily and 
generously “tapped the till” as he himself called it. 

Also in growing numbers and frequency, women 
phoned for Mr. Snelgrove or dropped into the office, in 
person. 

It became impossible for Dave to doubt that his 
partner was a man whom his father would call 
“steeped in sin”; yet, in spite of this, Dave got along 
with Snelgrove better than before. 

“We make a great pair, you and me,” Snelgrove fre¬ 
quently complimented Dave and himself. “You stick 
with me and watch the big money roll in. I got the 
experience and the point of view; you got the pep and 
the education and the polish.” 

Snelgrove frankly envied Dave his education but 
even more he admired and valued his junior partner’s 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 163 

“polish.” He commented: “You can work in any¬ 
where, boy; you know how to meet 'em all!” 

Dave did know, since Alice had taken him in his 
freshman year out of the meager round of contacts, 
which naturally would have been the lot of a minister's 
son working his way through Northwestern, and had 
gradually, through four years, made him accustomed 
to the acquaintance of the prosperous and “worldly” 
people who frequented the big house on Sheridan road. 

Often, when meeting a prospective customer and 
realizing that he was getting along with the prospect 
easily and favorably, Dave would feel a sudden, sharp 
pang of conscience at the thought that Alice had pre¬ 
pared him for this success. 

He did not quickly separate Alice’s interest from his 
own; he had formed the habit of including hers with 
his so completely that it startled him to discover, dur¬ 
ing the round of the day, how much he had cast from 
his life. Particularly toward evening, when the hour 
came at which he always had telephoned her, he felt 
lonely and lost. And the week-day mornings, when 
he had classes with Alice, became most difficult in 
another way. 

At that wretched midnight, when she had left him 
sitting in the cab beside Willard, he had thought in 
his dismay: “Have I ended college for her?” 

Of course he knew that she had barely three months 
more of attendance at classes to win her degree; but 
this only weighted his guilt if now she dropped out. 

But Alice did not drop out. On Monday morning, 
as usual, she appeared in her car at the edge of the 
campus. The difference was that he did not meet her; 




164 


FIDELIA 


she came up the walk alone and they did not encounter 
each other until they were entering the class-room. 

Everybody was watching them; for already every¬ 
body knew that it was “over” between Alice and Dave; 
and everybody knew why as certainly as though her 
cry to him in the cab, when she struck him with her 
little fist, had resounded through Willard: “I’ll never 
say it! Never! Never!” They knew Alice would 
never have said it; they had been waiting for him to 
jilt her for Fidelia Netley. Now they knew that he 
had done it and here, coming to class again, was Alice. 

She looked up at him and she was white but she was 
calm; quietly she said: “Good morning, David.” 

He quivered as he replied to her, in almost the same 
words. With himself, he realized: “She’s not quit¬ 
ting. I didn’t know her when I supposed she might.” 

Tremendously this sight of him stirred her that morn¬ 
ing. It was far more than she had expected; she had 
thought that, when she saw him, some change in him, 
in his physical appearance, would lessen her longing 
for him. But he was not changed; nothing seemed 
changed in this class-room after the lecture began. 
There he was seated before her in his accustomed 
place; here she was in hers, watching him, dreaming 
about him. No! No more of that; she dare not let 
herself relax and dream; for, if she did, she must go 
through the agony of realization again. She could not 
bear that. 

But what, what was different? There he was; here 
she was, where she had been happy through so many 
hours like this because of her nearness to him. It 
became more incredible, not less, now that she saw 



FIRST CONSEQUENCES 165 

him, that he had ceased to be hers, he would never 
again clasp her and kiss her, that he would not want 
to; incredible it was, indeed, that even their talks 
together, their confidences and friendship were finished 
because Fidelia Netley had come. 

Alice had drilled herself for the eleven o’clock meet¬ 
ing with Fidelia when they both—Fidelia and she— 
would come to class with David. Alice had warned 
herself: “I mustn’t hate her! I won’t! I won’t!” 
Yet this morning, during the hours between nine 
o’clock, when the first class with David was over, and 
eleven, when she would see him with Fidelia, she was 
weak with fear. What would she do when she saw 
Fidelia? Then she came upon Fidelia suddenly in the 
girls’ study room. 

“Why, Alice!” Fidelia exclaimed and seized her 
hands. “Why Alice!” 

A fury within Alice wanted to snatch her hands 
away but another power submitted her to Fidelia’s 
warm, close clasp. But while submitting, Alice 
searched Fidelia’s eyes. She saw no triumph in them; 
she saw no look, such as she expected, which taunted, 
“I’ve taken him from you.” 

And she realized that Fidelia felt no taunt and no 
triumph over her. She realized that Fidelia was not 
feeling sorry for her, either. Fidelia had done a ter¬ 
rible thing to her and Fidelia knew it but was only 
beginning to realize it now that she saw Alice. 

Alice clenched her fists within Fidelia’s hands and 
then suddenly relaxed. 

There rang in Alice’s throbbing brain, words which 
Myra had spoken in warning before Fidelia had ever 





166 


FIDELIA 


seen David. “She can’t help being an enemy.” That 
was what Myra had said; and Fidelia could not help 
being an enemy of Alice but she did not mean to be an 
enemy. Fidelia had no more planned to stay out on 
the floe and draw David to her than she had planned to 
sit in the sun on her first morning in class. She did 
such things because her nature made her sit in the sun 
and dare the starlit cold; and her nature, which made 
her do such things without planning or thinking, drew 
men away from girls who had no such nature. And 
this struck Alice to helplessness. 

Yet, with her helplessness, she found herself amaz¬ 
ingly without fear of Fidelia now. What a strange 
discovery to find her fear of Fidelia gone; for you 
can not fear one who no longer can hurt you; and 
Fidelia had taken away from Alice all that any one 
could. She had taken David and ended the meetings 
at the campus edge; ended their glances at each other, 
their sharing of plans, hopes, dreams; she had taken 
away the twenty-second of June, the wedding day! 
What a surprise to feel no fear of Fidelia! What did 
she feel? 

She did not know; she knew what thought ran 
through her. Alice thought: “She’ll have the wed¬ 
ding day; she’ll be David’s wife.” 

Alice drew her hands from Fidelia; the bell for class 
was ringing. “Come,” said Alice; it was her first 
word; and with Fidelia, she went to class and to 
David. 

Later, when she told Myra of meeting Fidelia, Alice 
said: “She didn’t want to spoil my life. She didn’t, 
My!” 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 167 

“What did she want to do?” Myra demanded. 

“It just happened to be me who had David who had 
—who had to have her. She didn’t do it, My; he 
did.” 

“He did his half, all right!” Myra admitted; she 
had become as open in her enmity to David as to Fi¬ 
delia. “And you don’t blame him, either!” Myra ac¬ 
cused and she went on uttering her impatience with 
Alice’s “abjectness.” 

Alice replied. “I don’t care if I am abject. I 
can’t think of anybody but him. My, I’ve all my life 
planned for years and years ahead—with David! We 
planned it all together. Where we’d live and how, and 
everything we’d do. We’ve taken the same courses for 
four years so we’d be interested in the same things; 
we’ve—” Alice broke down and cried. 

“You start at forgetting Dave!” Myra commanded 
almost savagely. “You start forgetting him right 
now!” 

But no one knew better than Myra that Alice never 
could do it; no one more fully realized the force of 
that tremendous, initial advantage which David had 
taken of Alice when he came to college, an overworked, 
serious and awkward boy, so strange to social manners 
that others laughed at him but Alice drew to his de¬ 
fense; no one better undestood that Alice never could 
hope to find, nor could she ever have heart to seek for, 
a substitute for her love for David which had been 
growing throughout the four years they had been de¬ 
veloping from girl and boy together. 

Theirs was an intimacy not to be likened to any 
ordinary engagement and least of all to the lightly held 


168 


FIDELIA 


“campus engagements” which led to far more “petting” 
and physical contacts than Alice and Dave ever per¬ 
mitted themselves. Theirs had been—or had been be¬ 
lieved to be—one of those fine friendships between boy 
and girl which naturally mature to the most beautiful 
and happiest of marriages such as are forever the glory 
of each class of girls and boys who have gone through 
college together. 

Betrayal of this was not merely a hurt to Alice but 
partook of the nature of an offense to many. Natu¬ 
rally, Dave felt the criticism of Alice’s friends and 
particularly of those who disliked Fidelia. He had ex¬ 
pected that; but he had not prepared himself for other 
currents which ran against him. He became self- 
conscious even among his own fraternity brothers and 
in his own room with Lan; in fact, he was especially 
self-conscious with Lan; for he had betrayed what Lan 
was loyal to. 

Dave avoided his own room when Lan was up there. 
Lan minded his own business; he made no criticism 
but merely became silent with Dave or else was wholly 
casual in his talk. Gone were the old, frank discus¬ 
sions of the room-mates in regard to their personal af¬ 
fairs; gone were the pleasant, natural mentionings of 
Myra and Alice and the planning of their parties of 
four. Lan seldom referred to Myra and never to 
Alice. To think that Alice’s name had become taboo! 

But if Dave occasionally was made to feel self- 
conscious and guilty, always—or almost constantly— 
he was aware of a new exhilaration which supplied 
that confident energy which gained the business re¬ 
sults so pleasing to Mr. Snelgrove. 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 169 

He found that the sensation of freedom, which had 
seized him when he was skating out from the shore, 
abandoned him only temporarily after his return. He 
had cast off, with Alice, a burden of conscience. He 
wrote to his father: “Alice and I are no longer en¬ 
gaged. We will never marry each other.” Also he 
wrote, but he did not send: “A girl has come to col¬ 
lege who is of the type you would find more detrimental 
to me than Alice. For she is the most beautiful girl 
I have ever seen. I know almost nothing about her 
character except that she is pleasant, strong in physical 
endurance and keeps cheerful hour after hour under 
trying conditions. The truth is, I think little about 
her character and less about her religious faith. I 
believe, as a matter of fact, she has none, though she 
likes to go to church. I love her. 

“Probably you wouldn’t call it love. You’d say I 
desire her. All right. But I mean to marry her, if I 
possibly can.” 

Dave wrote, even for himself, no more than that, 
though he kept what he had written and was tempted 
to send it on after he received his father’s reply. For 
his father assumed that the end of the betrothal of 
Alice and David had come as a result of sober realiza¬ 
tion of David’s “duty.” Ephraim Herrick protested 
his satisfaction and his conviction that it “followed the 
will of our Lord.” 

There came also, in the same envelope, a sheet writ¬ 
ten by his mother who prayed that her son had no 
heartache; and it was this which held Dave from a 
rejoinder to his father. Instead, Dave called upon 
that fund of accrued, but not yet earned, commissions 


170 


FIDELIA 


which Snelgrove drew upon freely; and Dave sent his 
mother fifty dollars extra that month, writing her: 
“Please spend it on yourself, every cent of it. Oh, 
mother, do get yourself a few nice things.” 

This gave him some satisfaction, though he knew his 
mother never would spend that money upon herself; 
and after she had not but had written him a careful 
accounting of how it had gone, he determined to buy 
an outfit for her himself next month. So he wrote his 
sister Deborah to abstract from the old packing trunk 
the winter dress his mother would have put away and 
to send it to him. 

When it arrived, he did not know quite how to pro¬ 
ceed; for Alice always had helped him in the selection 
of any considerable present for his mother. His idea 
was to take the dress down to Field’s, exhibit it as a 
sample for size and trust to the aid of the salespeople. 

He thought of asking Fidelia’s advice; but he had 
yet done nothing so deliberate as suggesting a shopping 
expedition with her. Daily he saw her, of course, fre¬ 
quently he walked with her; and, besides meeting her 
about the university buildings and on the campus, he 
found her at dances to which he went. 

There was a “formal” at almost every week-end; 
and often there were two big affairs. For spring was 
the natural season for festivities. Winter had its 
dances but they suffered, in comparison, from being 
necessarily shut into ball-rooms and heated halls; also 
the basketball championships went on through winter, 
claiming many Friday and Saturday evenings. Au¬ 
tumn was a far sterner season than spring, not only by 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 171 

reason of weather, but because of football; the whole 
college followed the eleven at home or away, gather¬ 
ing at the gymnasium nearly every Friday night for 
a great “pep” mass-meeting to practice songs and yells 
and to cheer the team; and then Saturday was to be 
saved, hopefully, for the celebration of victory. 

But May and June were the months of minor sports, 
of baseball and tennis to be played and of races to be 
run during the afternoon, leaving the evenings free; 
and the twilight was long and agreeable. Everywhere 
windows and doors were open; lawns became carpets of 
soft, cool grass; elms became quiet canopies, and the 
lake lay like a mirror for moon and stars, inviting 
to canoes. So these were favorite months for the 
music of “formals” from which couples could wander 
between dances and stroll hatless and without scarf 
over bare shoulders or dance with equal delight on 
veranda or ball-room floor. 

Almost every fraternity and sorority saved one of 
its allotted quota of entertainments to give a ball on 
some such Friday or Saturday evening of May or 
June. 

It was the custom of each society, when entertain¬ 
ing, to invite, in addition to its friends of the opposite 
sex, a select few from each of its own rival organiza¬ 
tions. And last year, no matter whether a fraternity 
or a sorority was the host, Alice Sothron and David 
Herrick were on every list. This spring, every fra¬ 
ternity invited Alice and every sorority chose her for 
one of the guests from Tau Gamma; but every sorority 
but one, besides Tau Gamma which already had en- 


172 


FIDELIA 


tertained, dropped Dave; and only one invited Fidelia. 

This was criticism direct; and Dave felt it; for he 
knew with what frank discussion each group of girls 
made out their lists. However, the fraternities invited 
him as usual; and every fraternity invited Fidelia. 

She received no mere general “bid” to each of these 
dances. Prior to the issue of the engraved invita¬ 
tions, at least one member of the fraternity to enter¬ 
tain called on Fidelia and offered himself as her es¬ 
cort. So she went with a different man to each of 
these dances. 

When Delta A entertained three Saturdays after 
Tau Gamma, Bill Fraser took Fidelia. He had gone 
to Dave before the invitations were out. 

“I suppose you’re taking Fidelia,” he commented. 

“I’m not taking her,” Dave replied. “You go ahead, 
if you want her.” 

“You bet I do,” Bill assured enthusiastically; and 
then inquired: “Who you taking, Dave?” 

“I’m stagging it,” Dave said and reddened. 

Fraser descended to the living-room and reported: 
“I’m going to ask Fidelia Netley. Dave’s still laying 
off.” 

Very consciously Dave was “laying off.” If Fidelia 
had been showing especial liking for any other one 
man, Dave might have done differently but she was 
making friends, impartially, with many. 

Bill Fraser put his own case fairly for all the rest: 
“I’m certainly crazy about that girl,” he confessed. 
“But I don’t fool myself that I’ll ever have a chance, 
but I bet Dave could sell himself there.” 

Dave, while “laying off,” wondered about that. Fi- 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 173 

delia gave him no sign; she remained friendly and in¬ 
terested; but during these weeks following his break 
with Alice, Fidelia never by word or act did one thing 
to lead him on. He considered: “She never actually 
made a lead for me; yet, she went with me as far as 
I asked her. . . . But I never asked any distance.” 

He was in his room one warm, May noon preparing 
to go to town when he saw Fidelia come from Mrs. 
Fansler’s. Fidelia was in blue street dress with scarf; 
she had on hat and veil and gloves, all evidences of 
no mere local errand but of an expedition to Chicago. 
Dave picked up that bundle of his mother’s dress, 
which had been long waiting his decision, and he went 
out and turned in the direction of the railroad station. 

He saw Fidelia half a block ahead but intentionally 
he did not overtake her until she reached the station 
platform. 

“Going to a matinee?” Dave asked; the day hap¬ 
pened to be Wednesday. ** 

“I don’t know,” Fidelia admitted. “Maybe.” 

As the train roared in, he waited until they were 
seated side by side before he pursued: “You mean 
you want to go to a show but aren’t sure of tickets?” 

“No,” said Fidelia. “I’m just going to the city. I 
don’t know what I’ll do; maybe a play; maybe shop¬ 
ping; maybe just seeing lots of people. Don’t you 
like to be that way?” 

“I never have,” Dave replied. “I say, how about 
lunch? Have you had it?” 

“No. I’m going to have that in the city.” 

“Where?” 

She smiled, her pretty nose shortening in its attrac- 


174 


FIDELIA 


tive way; she was profiled to him before the window. 
“Why, I’ll think up a place now, if I must!” 

“I’ve one all thought out,” Dave assured, “for both 
of us.” 

“Aren’t you going right off to business?” 

“Not to-day.” And he didn’t. 

He took her to Marshall Field’s luncheon room; not 
at all a daring place, but a pleasant one particularly 
as they arrived rather after the shoppers’ noon hour. 
They had a table in the cool Narcissus room near the 
quiet fountain with the wide basin of water-flowers and 
lily pads. The tables near them became deserted. 
They ordered the same things, sharing them in the 
intimacy of split “portions.” 

“It’s funny,” said Fidelia, as she served him half of 
an order put before her, “how one likes things dainty 
like this, everything crisp, just right, nothing burnt 
or soggy; and then you’ll call the best dinner you ever 
had a camp supper scorched black in places.” 

He was watching her hands, her beautiful, strong 
hands, capable, but which obeyed and never guided. 

“You cooked that supper?” he asked. 

“Well, I helped.” 

“It was in Idaho, I suppose.” 

“Yes.” 

With that word, she shut off further question in 
the gentle yet wholly final way she had. Dave ex¬ 
plained to himself, “Because the man she had it with, 
is dead.” And he was jealous of that man, though 
dead. 

“I’ve never had a camp supper,” he said. “But I’m 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 175 

going to have one! ” He thought of her hands helping 
another’s hands; he thought next of her hands helping 
his in preparation of their camp supper. 

When luncheon was over, she asked him: “Now 
what are we going to do?” 

He had been wondering when she would think of 
that. He said “I should have ordered theater tickets 
before we sat down. But we can get something yet.” 

“Do you want to?” 

“No.” 

She said: “I never did. Do you have to take your 
bundle somewhere?” 

He explained: “I was taking it here. It’s a dress 
of my mother’s. She won’t buy things for herself. 
My father’s a minister, you know.” 

Fidelia nodded. 

“My mother mostly wears worn clothes—I mean 
clothes which other people have worn,” Dave proceeded 
and flushed hot. 

“Yes,” said Fidelia. “I’ve lived in little towns.” 

“I’m going to get,” said Dave, “the best clothes for 
her that are in Marshall Field’s!” 

Fidelia arose. “You’re exchanging that?” She re¬ 
ferred to his bundle. 

“No; that’s a sample for size. It’s a dress some 
one gave her and she’d made over.” 

“Give it to me,” Fidelia asked. “I’ll look it over 
in the women’s room for size.” And she took his 
bundle away, to reappear with it a few minutes later. 

“She must be tall like you, David,” Fidelia said. 

“She is.” 



176 


FIDELIA 


“She’s awfully thin.” 

“Yes”; said Dave. 

“She’s—pale?” asked Fidelia. 

“Usually.” 

“You see I’ve got to think about the color,” Fidelia 
explained. “Her hair’s brown, I suppose.” 

“Pretty gray now,” said Dave. 

“Come,” said Fidelia and she took the lead in this. 

“Something for yourself, Miss?” asked the sales¬ 
people eagerly when Fidelia halted in the dress depart¬ 
ment. She explained she was shopping for a friend 
who was older and she gave a size. 

She selected a dress which never in the world would 
Dave have chosen though it had been shown him a 
dozen times; nor would Alice have approved it for his 
mother. They both would have thought it too gay; 
Dave would have thought, “Mother’ll never wear it.” 
But he did not think so now. 

“There! Isn’t this lovely for her? Think of her 
in it!” 

Dave thought and wholeheartedly approved; he 
bought the dress and a few minutes later a hat to go 
with it. 

“Now you go and get her gloves and I’ll get other 
things. Please don’t you bother about anything else,” 
Fidelia said. 

When they met below, Fidelia was satisfied. “She’ll 
have as good garments as anybody, underneath or out¬ 
side,” Fidelia reported. Dave asked: “How much do 
I owe you?” For they had been prepaying their pur¬ 
chases and having the goods sent direct to Itanaca 
from the store. 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 177 

Fidelia asked: “Let me do that last little bit, 
David! You see,” she explained, “when I saw that 
dress, which I took out of your bundle, I couldn’t help 
seeing my aunt Minna.” 

“Wearing the dress?” said Dave. 

“No; I thought of somebody like aunt Minna giving 
it to your mother, after it was worn; and I had to send 
what I did. Now let’s go see lots of people!” 

She would not tell what she had spent; and Dave 
gave up argument, knowing he would learn of these 
purchases from his mother. He went with Fidelia to 
Michigan Avenue where they turned south along the 
gay, fashionable shops. He longed to buy something 
for her; when he looked into the windows, he thought 
how this and that would look on her. He was light¬ 
hearted and happy as he had been only with her; and 
he thrilled with the admiration she aroused on the 
boulevard. 

Every one had to gaze at her; many stared; and 
nearly every one, after staring at her, glanced at him 
and envied him. She took the attention beautifully, 
not pretending to be utterly unconscious of it but never 
made self-conscious by it. 

Perhaps, upon that warm May afternoon in the 
shadows of the tall buildings, with the shafts of the 
sun laying their golden light at each street intersec¬ 
tion, Fidelia was fairer and more alluring than ever 
before. She made no obvious attempt to attract; she 
was in a plain, blue street dress with a straw hat and 
gray gloves; only now she left off her veil. Obviously, 
to be sure, she was happy; and to Dave, that was a 
triumphant walk. He had never felt of such account 


178 


FIDELIA 


before. He wanted to go on and on with Fidelia; he 
wanted to show her to Snelgrove and to men he knew 
on “the row” far down the boulevard. But she stopped 
when they reached Congress Street. 

“You have to go to work now, I know,” she said. 

Dave denied it but she determined to return home. 

She said “home” meaning Mrs. Fansler’s in Evans¬ 
ton; but the word struck Dave with dismay at the 
thought of her departing in a few weeks, at the end of 
the college year. 

“Where’ll you be going when school’s out?” he 
demanded. 

“I?” she said; and considered for a moment. “Why, 
I’ve no special place to go. Dorothy Hess wants me 
to visit her for a while after graduation. What would 
you think of that?” 

“Where does she live?” Dave asked. 

“Streator, Illinois.” 

“That’s a good idea. I’d do it.” 

She gazed at him seriously and asked: “You’d like 
me to?” 

“I would. Will you?” 

“I will.” 

He said: “Then I’ll come down and call for you 
there.” 

“What?” she asked. 

He was quivering. He had not known what he was 
to say until he had spoken it; now he planned aloud: 
“That’s what we’ll do, Fidelia. You go down to 
Streator; and I’ll call for you. Will you?” 

She held her breath for a moment and then asked: 
“Will I what, David?” 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 179 

“Go down with Dorothy Hess. You said you would, 
before I said I’d call for you. Will you now?” 

She replied: “Yes. I’ll do that.” 

“I’ll,” he said and stopped for breath. They were 
standing on the street corner and, so far as any one 
passing might guess, they were arranging only some 
ordinary appointment before they parted—“I’ll call 
for you as soon as I can.” 

He thrust his hand forward and she gave him hers; 
and their eyes met. “Good-by now, David,” she said. 

“Not now!” he denied. 

“Yes; you go on to business. I want you to; I 
want to go back alone!” 

She drew her hand away and turned from him; he 
took a step after her, then he stopped and watched her 
as she was caught in the crowd on the walk. He was 
suffused as he realized the compact he had made with 
her. He, who had broken solemn betrothal with Alice, 
had made an agreement to “call for” Fidelia at 
Streator; and he knew he would not fail in this. 

The very vagueness of their compact satisfied him 
better than would any formal pledge; for he had just 
broken the most definite of promises and Fidelia knew 
it. Moreover, David had a feeling against making 
any final assertion until after the twenty-second of 
June. He knew this was wholly to satisfy an emo¬ 
tional protest within himself; but the protest was there 
and he could not ignore it. Now, Fidelia would wait 
for him until after the twenty-second, when he would 
go to Streator and fetch her; he would carry her away 
with him in the warmth of June, on the evening of 
some day like this; he would take her to a forest shore 


180 FIDELIA 

far from the rest of the world; he would have his camp 
supper with her! 

He planned the place while he walked alone after 
she had vanished; he thought of the Wisconsin woods 
above the shore of the lake with the moon above the 
warm, mirrored waters in which Fidelia and he would 
bathe; he thought of their campfire on the fringe of 
the sands; their bed on the ground. 

He thought of his father and of the Apostle Paul; 
and as he planned his preparations for his marriage, 
he considered how he would prevent his father from 
discovering what he meant to do. His father intended 
to visit Evanston for the Commencement exercises; 
but David could prevent him by simply refraining 
from sending home any more money. 

So David sent presents home instead of making his 
usual remittance for June. His mother was delighted 
with the dress which Fidelia had selected but she 
returned, for exchange, the articles which Fidelia had 
chosen for her personal gift and which were the finest 
and softest of silk underwear. Sarah Herrick obtained 
several times the number of cotton garments for herself 
and her daughters with the credit. 

David did not tell Fidelia of this and he made no 
attempt to persuade her to accept repayment of the 
money she had spent. He was meeting her daily, of 
course; and outwardly there was little change in their 
relations; no one could report, with more certainty 
than before, that Fidelia Netley and David Herrick 
were “engaged.” 

When they were alone, David spoke boldly of 


181 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 

“Streator”; he said, “when I come to call for you!” 
He divided time into periods “before” and “after I 
call for you!” Fidelia, when she referred to their 
compact, used his phrase for it; but it seldom came 
to her lips. Sometimes she seemed, indeed, to wish to 
avoid thinking of their agreement; this bothered him 
but when he asked her, point blank, what was the 
matter, she kissed him. 

Yet he had few kisses. This was not the result of 
any deliberate regulation between him and her. She 
was shy with him; and he, himself, was holding off. 
He argued with himself: “With her, this is the way 
to be. I won’t try for more now. I’ll have all at 
once!” Still her shyness, and her reluctance to speak 
of what they would do after he called for her, worried 
him. 

She was not to be graduated, but, after most of 
the students had gone home, Fidelia remained at Mrs. 
Fansler’s for the end of Commencement week. Dor¬ 
othy Hess, being a senior, was staying on; and Dorothy 
not only won her diploma but was given her coveted 
honor of the Phi Beta Kappa key. 

Dorothy’s parents were in town for Commencement; 
Myra’s mother and father had arrived from Rock 
Island and Lan’s had come for the graduation cere¬ 
monies; but David’s were not there. His father wrote 
him a long and very earnest letter; his mother sent 
him the first flowers from her garden—they came by 
post wrapped in wet newspaper and bore the message, 
“For my boy, my oldest son, Mother.” 

Alice’s family of course came to the college for 


182 


FIDELIA 


Commencement; and her mother cried and her father 
watched with eyes blurred when Alice walked up in 
her turn to take her diploma and when the class and 
the other students clapped and clapped for her as 
they did for nobody else. 

Alice hardly thought of what she was doing; she 
thought: “David’s here with me for the last time.” 
The epoch of their perforced meetings was finished. 
She thought: “Only by accident will I ever see him 
again. He’ll marry Fidelia soon. He’s waiting until 
after the twenty-second.” For Alice knew David so 
well that she realized how he was feeling about that 
date of the twenty-second. 

David saw Fidelia off on the train with Dorothy and 
her mother and father. They departed in the morn¬ 
ing after Commencement; and it seemed to David, on 
that morning, that Fidelia purposely avoided letting 
him find her alone. 

He made her promise, again, to wait for him to call 
for her at Streator; but, after she was gone, he wor¬ 
ried. 

He had torn up, after one reading, the letter which 
his father had sent him; but he kept his mother’s 
flowers until after they faded and then he preserved 
one white petalled daisy, pressing it between the leaves 
of the bible his mother had given him. 

Two days after the twenty-second, the Hamilton 
factory happened to make delivery of several car-loads 
of automobiles which David sent at once to the cus¬ 
tomers who had ordered; and so he had earned and 
had in hand considerable money of his own. He wired 
Fidelia that he was coming for her; that night he was 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 183 

in Streator and no longer he found Fidelia shy with 
him. 

He thought, confidently: “The trouble with her was 
that we were in college where I’d been engaged to 
Alice.” He made his few arrangements that evening 
and upon the next morning he stood with Fidelia before 
an Episcopal clergyman in the front parlor of Dorothy 
Hess’s home. “Before God and this company,” which 
consisted of Dorothy Hess’s family, David and Fidelia 
entered into that holy estate which is “not by any one 
to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, 
lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy carnal lusts and appe¬ 
tites, like brute beasts which have no understanding; 
but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in 
fear of God.” 

The words, when they were repeated, brought before 
David the image of his father; and David banished it. 
In his waistcoat pocket, where he had the ring by 
which he would wed Fidelia, he had a dried and 
faded flower—the daisy blossom which his mother had 
sent him. His fingers touched it as he felt for the 
ring. 

On the evening of that day, their wedding day, 
David and Fidelia were in camp on the shore of the 
lake. They were in the Wisconsin woods at a spot 
like the haven of David’s dream. They were alone; 
not even a guide was with them. They exulted, 
“Nobody within miles!” 

Together, and with quivering hands held to the 
same utensils, they prepared and cooked their camp 
supper; and never was a meal like that in all the world, 
in all time, ten thousand years ago or now! When 


184 


FIDELIA 


they were finished, they heaped up their fire so they 
would not have to tend it again. 

Late, when the moon was above the pines, when the 
fire glowed in embers and the tree toads were singing, 
David lay awake from the tumult of his soul. Fidelia 
was sleeping, lovely, far lovelier as she lay beside him 
with her throat bare, her hair in loose braids, her arm 
toward him, far lovelier than ever he had dreamed. 

He lay beside her, staring up at the sky, aghast at 
the teachings which had all but possessed him but 
which, by this night, he had denied. 

“This is what they call the great sin,” he repeated 
to himself, “unless done ‘reverently, soberly and in fear 
of God.’ ” He laughed quietly at his father’s God. 
“The wonder of love with her!” he exulted. “And to 
think I’d been taught all my life to fear love and to 
look upon love for love as low! ” 

A star shone clearly between the branches of the 
trees: 

“Up from Earth’s Center through the Seventh Gate,” 
he whispered: 

“I rose and on the Throne of Saturn sate; 

And many a knot unravelled by the road; 

But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. 

There was the door to which I found no Key; 

There was the veil through which I could not see; 

Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 

There was—” 

He turned and gazed at Fidelia’s face in the moon¬ 
light. 


FIRST CONSEQUENCES 185 

“And then no more of Thee and Me.” 

He whispered: “All right. Who wants Eternity?” 1 
he cast his defiance to the stars. “I’m satisfied with 
the Throne of Saturn. ‘No more of Me and Thee 5 after 
a while; but now Thee and Me! 55 And he kissed 
Fidelia, his wife. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE BRIDAL CAMP 


HE wedding journey was to last two weeks. 



David had arranged business affairs so that 


he could be away that long but he had never 
discussed the time with Fidelia. 

“We can stay here thirteen days more?” David 
asked her on their first morning in camp; and it seemed 
to him he hoped an incredible thing. 

“Why, David, of course I can, if you can.” 

“I mean,” he explained, “no one’s expecting you?” 

“Who’d expect me?” she asked. 

“Or you’ve nothing else to do?” 

“Why, what else have I to do than to be your wife, 
David?” she answered and kissed him, lovingly. 

“That’s right,” said David, wonderingly and held 
her hand clasped in his. They had been in the lake 
together; they had raced on the beach; they had 
cooked and eaten their camp breakfast. After bath¬ 
ing, Fidelia had put up her hair before it was quite 
dried; now she shook it down and it was over her 
shoulders in a bronze and golden shower. They sat, 
side by side, in the sun on the warm, white sand with 
the lake rippling at their feet. They had no duty to 
trouble them; they could be idle for hours, if they 
liked, they could follow wholly their inclination. 

None of this seemed strange to Fidelia; to her, it 


186 



THE BRIDAL CAMP 


187 


was perfectly natural and right; and David tried to 
feel as untroubled as she about it. He was happy; 
yes, he felt a happiness which he had never known 
before. But with it, was wonder and disquiet. 

It was the hour of the day at which David Herrick 
was used to doing something, to be absorbed in follow¬ 
ing and recording a lecture in class, to be hard at work 
or to be seriously attentive to a service in church. On 
recent Sundays, David had not gone to church but he 
had never been idle when he stayed away. So this 
idleness, with the prospect of much more of it, was in 
itself strange to him; and how strange to be married, 
to be far away from every one with a girl who had no 
duty to any one else, who had nothing in the world to 
do but be his wife! 

“I’ll write to Mr. Jessop, the first time we’re tramp¬ 
ing over by the railroad,” Fidelia said. “He’s a dear; 
and Mrs. Jessop’ll be awfully glad I’m married.” 

“I’ll write father,” David said. “I know I ought to 
do it to-day and get it off to-night. It’ll be worse, if 
he hears from somebody else, first.” 

“Worse,” Fidelia repeated and shivered there in the 
sun. She was sifting the dry, fine sand through her 
fingers and she gazed down at it. “Worse,” she said 
again. 

David accused himself hotly for this hurt of her; he 
declared, hastily, “I told you he was opposed to my 
marrying any one at all now. He was opposed to 
Alice, Fidelia!” 

“Not so much as he would be to me.” 

“That’s not so!” 

“David, look at me!” she asked, gazing at him. 









188 FIDELIA 

“There!” she said, when he met her eyes but soon 
faltered. 

He seized her and cried: “Well, what do we care?” 

When he released her, she asked him, seriously: 
“David, why won’t your father—why don’t people like 
me—what would they want me to do?” 

“People are crazy over you!” said David. “Nearly 
everybody.” 

“Lots of people hate me, David. They always have.” 

“You’ve always been pretty.” 

Fidelia shook her head. “That’s not it.” 

“Why isn’t it?” 

She gazed at him honestly and said quietly: “Alice 
has always been pretty; and everybody’s loved her. 
She hasn’t a hater in the world, David.” 

Alice! The thought of her stabbed David; he 
thought of her as he had seen her last when she stepped 
forward on the platform at Commencement to receive 
her diploma and all the audience applauded and 
applauded. Fidelia was so sure that this was in his 
mind that she said: “If that had been me, how many 
would have cared?” 

David protested: “What I did put people at the 
college against you.” 

Fidelia shook her head; she raised her hands to her 
hair and thrust her fingers through it. Watching her, 
David thrilled with realization that he possessed her. 

“Come here, Fidel!” he commanded. “Fidel!” he 
repeated, proprietorily creating his own name for her. 
“Now,” he said, more satisfied when she was closer, 
“let’s you and me plan where we’re going to live.” 

“Where do you want to?” asked Fidelia. 


THE BRIDAL CAMP 


189 


He said, playing with her hair and pulling a strand 
lightly to tease her: “I believe you’ve got married 
with no more plan than you took in town with you 
that day—our day. You just went to town; and you 
just married, didn’t you?” 

“You think I ought always have a definite plan, 
David?” she questioned him, seriously. 

“No,” denied David, delighted with her. “Never, if 
you don’t want to.” 

“You see, I know what I’ll have every month,” 
Fidelia sought to explain herself, “but I don’t know 
about you. I get three hundred dollars a month, 
David; or I can get it, if I want to.” 

“You mean you don’t always draw it?” he asked, 
somewhat surprised. 

“No. Mr. Jessop keeps the extra for me, if ever 
I need it.” 

“I see,” said David. “Well, we’ll have out of the 
business, if sales keep on as they’ve started, about five 
or six hundred a month. But I’ve a personal debt of 
ten thousand dollars, Fidelia; it’s all right for it’s capi¬ 
tal investment but it was put up for me by a man 
named Fuller, who lives in Itanaca; and of course I’ve 
got to pay interest on that first of all. And I must 
keep on sending money to my mother.” 

“Oh, David, can’t we send more?” 

“More!” said David, pleased and amused. “You 
don’t know how much we send now, do you?” 

“No; but I saw that dress—your mother’s dress 
which your sister sent up, don’t you remember? Some- 
body’d given it to her and she’d worn it until—” 
Fidelia’s eyes filled. “I couldn’t forget that dress, 


190 


FIDELIA 


David. I’m so glad we’re married and I can talk to 
you about her. She’s so thin, David; I’d like to see 
that she has delicious things which she’d like.” 

“Oh, she gets enough food,” David objected. 

“But she is so thin! Couldn’t we hire a maid for 
her?” 

“Mother,” exclaimed David, “with a maid!” 

“I mean to cook for her and do the housework. I 
love her already, David; and I want her so to love me!” 

“I want her to!” muttered David and his throat felt 
choked. He gazed away from his wife and then, look¬ 
ing at her, he bade, suddenly: “Put up your hair.” 

She obeyed him and he could see that he had 
puzzled her by his tone; for his father and mother, 
and the thought of bringing his wife to his home, were 
in his mind and had made him order an end to aban¬ 
don. He could not explain this; he suggested: “Shall 
we go out in the canoe now?” 

She arose, giving him her hands, warmly clasping 
his. 

When they were upon the water, there fled from 
Fidelia’s mind all concern over what his father would 
want her to do; but David did not dismiss it so easily. 
He thought how he had discussed this identical matter 
with Alice, when he had explained to her his father’s 
idea that man and woman ought not to marry for the 
gratifying of desire for each other but only for the 
purpose of together working the pleasure of God. He 
thought how Alice had comprehended this idea; and he 
thought, as he watched his wife drawing her hand 
through the warm water beside the canoe, how bewil¬ 
dered she would look if he started to tell her that he 


THE BRIDAL CAMP 


191 


should not want, first of all, to please her and she 
should not live to gratify him. 

He thought how different she was, not only from 
his mother, but from Alice. On the beach, a few min¬ 
utes ago, he had told Fidelia for the first time of the 
ten thousand dollars he had borrowed from Mr. Fuller 
and she had completely ignored it; what she had talked 
about, the next moment after, was sending his mother 
some food. How tremendously serious a matter that 
debt had been to Alice! How she had debated it with 
him and had entered into the responsibility of it! He 
thought of her as having felt it almost as much as he, 
himself. 

He drove from him, by deliberate effort, his images 
of his close companionship with Alice; but, in going, 
they stirred in him connected thoughts. He gazed at 
his wife and wondered who was he who had been to 
her what Alice had been to himself? Who was the man 
who had been her companion on the occasion when she 
had to beat wind and water to live and who had been 
in the party about the campfire where Fidelia had 
shared “the best supper ever,” although it was burnt 
black in places. 

David thought, as he looked at his lovely wife: 
“You meant you cared for him.” David knew that the 
man was dead; for Fidelia had told him so during the 
night they drifted on the ice off Alice’s home; but 
since then, she had never mentioned him and David 
had found no good opportunity to ask more. 

This was not the time to ask, when he would 
put his question out of nothing more than his own 
thoughts. How little he knew about this beautiful, 




192 


FIDELIA 


loving girl who was off here alone with him, away from 
the rest of the world, and who was his wife! Every¬ 
where she had been, men must have sought her; and 
one, at least, had made her care for him. 

What memories of that man were coming, bidden or 
unbidden to her thoughts, as images of Alice came to 
his own? 

David wondered about this so much that he dared 
not ask, without some excuse which would make his 
question casual. So he put it off during the day; and 
then, at night, asked it abruptly, after all. 

They were in camp and cooking their supper when 
David suddenly said: “What was his name?” 

“Sam’s name?” asked Fidelia. 

“I didn’t know even that his name was Sam,” said 
David, quivering with realization this Sam was, at the 
same moment, in his wife’s mind. 

“It was,” Fidelia told him. 

“What was the rest of his name?” 

“Bolton.” 

“You were engaged to him once?” 

“Yes, David.” 

“When he died, you were?” 

“What?” 

“Engaged to him?” 

Fidelia gazed into the campfire and thought; and 
David wondered: “Why does she have to think? 
Can’t she remember that?” Then she looked at him, 
very seriously and said: “Not exactly, David.” 

She replied so soberly that David explained to him¬ 
self: “Bolton’s dead; and of course she wants to be 


THE BRIDAL CAMP 193 

fair to him.” Aloud he said: “You broke with him, 
you mean.” 

“No. Not exactly. We both did it, David. He 
went away; that’s how it was. Then he died.” 

David was sure that she had sent him away; he was 
glad that her break with Sam Bolton had happened 
before Bolton’s death and had been of her doing. 

David asked: “Do you want to tell me, were you 
ever engaged to anybody else?” 

“I wasn’t David,” she told him and it was a satis¬ 
fying assurance which prevented him from asking 
more. 

Fidelia wrote her letter to Mr. Jessop by the camp¬ 
fire that evening; she finished hers quickly; but David 
wrestled long with his letter to his father. He destroyed 
many drafts before he composed a simple statement 
of the fact that he had married a girl, named Fidelia 
Netley, who had no family, who had come to college 
at mid-year and who was the girl with whom he had 
been carried out on the ice. He added the date and 
place of the wedding and stated that he purposely had 
kept his father in ignorance of his plan. 

They tramped through the woods to the rail 
road and mailed their letters in the morning; and they 
returned to their camp, singing. They moved camp 
on the next day, not from any discontent with the 
spot they had first chosen but because David required 
occupation. 

Fidelia liked to exert herself in the packing of the 
camp kit; she liked the paddling of the loaded canoe 
and the clearing of the camp site; she liked to expend 



194 


FIDELIA 


her strength. Also, she liked idleness; she could 
indulge in sleep and in day-dreaming indolence upon the 
warm sand to an extent amazing to her husband. But 
she never shirked any of her duties; she always arose 
to do them promptly and enthusiastically. 

She had one daily task of which he did not learn 
for some time. Fidelia had brought along a new vol¬ 
ume, bound in red leather, in which she continued her 
diary, writing in the mornings after David left her 
alone in camp. Once when he returned sooner than he 
had expected, he discovered her absorbed in her book; 
and her intentness was so great that he watched her 
in surprise. 

When he stepped nearer and she heard him, she shut 
her book and arose, facing him with eyes aglow. 

“David, it’s our ninth day in camp!” she cried to 
him. “We must go back to-morrow! ” 

“Why?” he asked her; and added, “what was that 
you were doing?” 

“My diary, David.” 

“I never knew you kept a diary.” 

“Oh, I have—ever since I was ten years old.” 

“I’d like to see that,” he said; and as her fingers 
clasped more tightly on the book which she held closed, 
he amended by saying: “I’d like to see the one you 
kept when you were little, Fidelia.” 

It made him imagine her when she was a child, 
without a home but the schools to which she had been 
sent; it made him feel the loneliness of the little girl 
who had bought a blank book, when she was ten years 
old, to take the confidings of her troubles and her 
thoughts. 


THE BRIDAL CAMP 195 

“What was that about our ninth day in camp?” he 
asked her. 

“We ought to go back, now!” 

“Why? Aren’t you happy here?” 

“Oh, I’m wonderfully happy, David.” 

“Then—” 

She broke in upon him: “But we ought to go back! ” 

He knew her well enough to realize that this might 
be merely the result of some emotion which seized her 
without much or any reason; whatever the cause, her 
indolence was at an end. Of herself she set about the 
business of breaking camp and when she kept at it, 
he asked her: “See here, Fidelia; did anything happen 
when I was away?” 

“Happen?” she said. 

“Was any one here? With a letter or a message, I 
mean.” 

“Why, no, David.” And, as he bent beside her, she 
kissed him. “We’ve been awfully happy here, haven’t 
we?” she said. “Only it’s hard for you to be just 
happy very long, isn’t it?” 

“Hard!” he protested. 

She kissed him again, with her soft, warm tender¬ 
ness. “You’re good to me; I love you. Then, let’s 
go—won’t we, David?—when we’re so happy, yet?” 

He said, holding her: “We’ll be happy always, any¬ 
where.” But when he released her, she went on pack¬ 
ing and he helped her; and they left camp that after¬ 
noon in time to take the night train to Chicago. 

That train, which rushed them southward through 
the dark, reminded David of the tug-boat which had 
rescued Fidelia and himself from the floe in the lake and 


196 


FIDELIA 


which had brought him back, from the wonder of his 
first flight with Fidelia, to his duties and responsibili¬ 
ties. He had the same feeling of coming again to an 
accounting; and he could not keep out the idea that, 
in the accounting upon his return, Alice was concerned. 


CHAPTER XVII 

A PARLOR CAR TO ITANAGA 

F IDELIA wrote in her diary, upon the second 
morning after their return to Chicago: 

“We’ve been married eleven days and nothing wrong has 
happened. Nothing at all! David just gets more and more 
wonderful with me every day. There’s nothing like having 
character in a man you’re married to; it counts in so many 
ways. It makes a man think about the girl ... but it keeps 
him thinking about other people, too. 

“Now S-” [invariably Fidelia referred to “S” by ini¬ 

tial only in this volume of her diary; but she always wrote 
David’s name] “was about as different as a man could be. 
He didn’t think about me. He didn’t! Of course, if he 
wasn’t thinking about me, then he wasn’t thinking about 
any other girl, either. He was just having his way. David’s 
fine to me. He keeps me right in his mind. 

“He keeps Alice, too. He doesn’t want her instead of 
me; Maybe he might, if I was afraid he might and if I 
didn’t mention her and want him to. ... I want him to 
see her, too. 

“I like his thinking about her. I do. I like his think¬ 
ing about his father and mother. He hasn’t seen Alice or 
heard from her in any way; but his father and mother both 
wrote him yesterday; I mean, he got the letter yesterday at his 
office. It had been waiting for him about a week. I’ve seen 
the envelope; he wouldn’t show me what his father said nor 
all his mother said. 

“I don’t think she said what she wanted to, quite; for her 
letter came enclosed with his; but she said “Bring my new 
daughter to me, my son, so I may love her.” 

197 





198 


FIDELIA 


“Mother Herrick is sweet. I know I’ll love her and she 
will truly try to like me. I guess it is pretty sure that 
father Herrick won’t. We are going to Itanaca this 
afternoon.” 

Fidelia was writing in a room at the Blackstone 
Hotel. She had a beautiful and luxurious room and 
she liked the comfort of it after their camp; but it did 
not particularly impress her. She was used to stopping 
at very good hotels when she visited cities and she had 
little idea of the mental struggle it had cost David 
to decide upon the extravagance of this room. 

To her, the decision depended chiefly upon whether 
they could afford it; and David had assured her that 
he could and he was particularly positive after he had 
visited his office and talked with Snelgrove; for he 
discovered that during his absence the factory had 
continued delivery of cars and the model was proving 
a “catchy” and popular one. Customers were coming 
in and buying. 

Fidelia had in her dresser drawer five ten-dollar bills 
which her husband had given her, for her personal use, 
and which were a sort of trophy taken from his commis¬ 
sions which had been accumulating for him. She did 
not need the money and she had no idea of spending 
it but she liked his giving it to her. She had a hundred 
dollars of her own, which she had carried to camp, 
and now she went out to buy gifts for David’s family. 

She walked up Michigan Avenue debating with her¬ 
self what she could bring. She could not give clothes, 
at least not necessary clothing such as she had helped 
David select in the spring; yet she must give some 


A PARLOR CAR TO ITANACA 199 

expensive things to show how much she wanted to 
please them. 

Stopping before a shop window, she remembered 
that David had told her his mother had liked that col¬ 
orful dress which Fidelia, herself, had selected, so she 
picked out a gay, green parasol to go with it. She 
gazed in a silversmith’s window upon shining vases, 
platters, teapots and table-ware which tempted her; 
but she passed on to a florist’s. Flowers never gave 
offense, she considered, so she purchased a huge box 
of roses which the florist promised to pack so as to en¬ 
dure a four-hour railroad journey and to deliver at the 
hotel just before her time of leaving. Fidelia hesitated 
at the door of a shop showing laces and scarfs and 
stockings but she went on to a confectioner’s where she 
bought five pounds of the most expensive chocolates 
and had them sent in an extravagant basket, lined 
with satin, and to be used, when emptied, for a lady’s 
sewing. 

Fidelia succeeded in spending almost sixty dollars 
for these and she was glad of it. She had forty more 
to spend upon a gift for David’s father and she went 
out again to the sunlight of the warm, summer morn¬ 
ing and wandered along the boulevard looking for 
something which would prove she wished to please 
him. 

Nearly every one who passed—and particularly the 
men—gazed at her; and Fidelia got to thinking about 
them. Here on the boulevard where faced the clubs 
and the fashionable shops, no man gave in his glance 
anything but approval of Fidelia Herrick. No man 


200 


FIDELIA 


she offended; no man but would try to please her. 
sparing her any need of thought to please him except 
with herself. But Fidelia knew that, though none 
might pass her this morning on Michigan Avenue, there 
were men more implacable than any woman could be 
in regard to her; there were men whom never could 
she please, no matter what she did, but to whom, how¬ 
ever hard she tried otherwise, she only added offense; 
and she realized, as she wandered along with her forty 
dollars, how worse than useless would be a gift if 
David’s father proved to be one of these men. 

David met her in their room at noon and when she 
showed him what she had bought for his mother and 
sisters, he kissed her and told her that her gifts were 
just “like her.” And how like her they were! How 
little knowledge they showed of the home to which he 
was taking her; how little knowledge his wife had, in¬ 
deed, of himself. 

There was an incident at the railroad station, tre¬ 
mendous to David, and which Fidelia did not even 
suspect. It was his purchase of parlor-car tickets to 
Itanaca. David had bought Pullman tickets twice pre¬ 
viously; but both times under conditions so strange as 
to call up no comparisons; for the occasions were when 
he was leaving Streator at noon with his bride and 
when he and she were returning from their camp to 
Chicago. But now he was going home on a familiar 
train made up of half a dozen ordinary day-coaches, 
in which David Herrick always had traveled, and a 
parlor car in the rear which he had never entered. 

None of his family had ever entered it. Not his 
father nor his mother nor had his sister Deborah upon 


A PARLOR CAR TO ITANACA 


201 


her one journey to Chicago. Of course it had been 
possible for any of them to spend an extra dollar for 
a seat in a parlor car; but no one of them had thought 
of doing it. What a contempt had David Herrick for 
people who paid to put themselves apart from others 
or who cared so much for the comfort of a cotton cover 
over plush that they spent extra fare for it! Yet, here 
was David Herrick escorting his wife aboard the parlor 
car for Itanaca. 

It did no good for him to argue with himself that, 
considering what he was making, he “ought” to take a 
parlor car; his own feelings answered him, as he sat 
in his separate seat with its clean, white cover over 
the plush, with the window beside him screened against 
dust, with an electric fan whirling noiselessly above 
him—and in the next seat a girl so beautiful that every 
one gazed at her in admiration and who was his wife. 
He was a different person from the boy who used to 
travel, to and from college, in those hot, grimy, common 
coaches ahead. 

The train, leaving the city and the region of the lake, 
passed into the country, into the familiar, flat, cloud¬ 
less cornland of central Illinois. Over the fields, black 
and brown and gray and all studded with the bright 
green leaves and stalks of the growing corn, lay a 
glaring, heavy heat. No breeze stirred the solidity of 
it. Motorcars cut it, cleaving in straight lines on the 
level, yellow roads and the dust, raised by their wheels, 
remained suspended in long streaks which showed the 
substance of that hot sunlight; the cars which stood 
at the crossing, waiting for the train to go by, were 
halted under hanging, powdery halos of haze. 


202 


FIDELIA 


It was a day when men worked in sweat and swift 
weariness. David Herrick well knew the burden of 
labor on such a day. How he used to work himself, 
unsparingly, brutally because of the belief bred in him, 
that labor and hardship for their own sake were good 
for his soul! 

This heat, slapping in through his screened window, 
struck his cheek with a challenge which the ceaselessly 
whirling fan could not cool; it inquired of David Her¬ 
rick how much of principle had been involved in his 
denials of self-indulgence, how much they had been 
merely a result of necessity. 

Here in the heat and the glare, he suddenly thought, 
oppositely, of night darkness and cold; he thought 
how, with Alice in her car stopped at the edge of the 
graveyard, he had declared he would cease to sacrifice 
his opportunities for pleasure on this earth for the sake 
of laying up uncertain treasures in heaven. 

The graveyard that night and the snow and the dark 
and the storm over the lake had not reproached him 
as now did this afternoon glare and heat over his 
homeland. 

Fidelia took off her hat; the porter brought a paper 
bag to protect it and put it upon the rack overhead. 
David pulled lower the heavy green window-curtain, 
as the sun got around to the side of the car; and 
Fidelia leaned back her head comfortably and dozed. 
Now and then, as an air current or a lurch of the car 
puffed in the curtain, a streak of sun shone on 
her hair and made it glorious; and David, watching 
her, felt his throat close and choke. How lovely she 
was and how sweet and docile, always! How she 


A PARLOR CAR TO ITANACA 203 

wanted to be liked! And how little idea she had of 
the home, his home, to which he was taking her! 

He gazed from her to her presents piled on the floor 
beyond her seat. It was not yet too late to prevent 
her from offering them; he had still time to explain 
that it would be far, far better for her to come to his 
father’s home empty-handed, in poor clothes and plain 
in appearance. Then his father would know that David 
had married his wife out of no lust of the flesh. 

David swung about, denying such a notion. They 
would see her as she was and bearing the gifts for 
them which she, herself, had selected. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


“but and if ye suffer” 

DELIA disappeared into the women’s room, 



half an hour before the train was due at 


Itanaca, and when she emerged she was fresh 
and radiant without a sign of four hours’ hot travel. 
David arose as she rejoined him and she asked: “Do 
I look all right now?” 

“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world!” he 
whispered to her and he was sure it was so. 

The heat and excitement brightened her large eyes 
and heightened the clear color of her lovely skin. 
David was excited. 

The town, which the train was entering, differed in 
no important aspect from other towns passed during 
the afternoon. The drab, dusty station was a replica 
of others; behind it lay a wide, rutted, sunbaked road. 
Harder’s general store showed a sun-blistered side to 
arriving passengers; Eldrige’s feed store faced it and 
there was old Jake Cullen shoeing a horse in the door 
of his blacksmith shop. Half a dozen identical cars, 
all identically dusty, clustered before the Ford Garage. 
The dry, dust-powdered elms of July drooped in the 
parched parkway before “The Itanaca House”; an op¬ 
posite clump somewhat shaded the west front of the 
new, white painted picture theater and of Lekkin’s bil¬ 
liard hall next it. 

In David’s mind, as he gazed from the car, there 


204 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


205 


attached to each establishment and each person in 
sight the pronouncement of his father’s judgments. 
Lekkin’s hall was a place of idleness, gambling and 
vileness; David’s father would, if he could, shut the 
hall and burn its furniture. The picture theater did 
much more harm than good, though it might be made 
only an instrument for good. Mr. Harder was a God¬ 
fearing Christian and generous, if easy-going; Cullen 
drank in secret. . . . 

David looked past the fronts of the stores and up 
the road which reached away in a pleasant vista of 
trees between which showed the roofs of homes; the 
home of Henry West, whom David always had been 
told to respect; of Theodore Lorber, whose first wife 
had divorced him for scriptural sin and who brazenly 
had married again. On a rise of ground appeared the 
big, red brick house of Mr. Fuller from whom—in 
defiance of his father—David had borrowed the ten 
thousand dollars with which he had bought his part¬ 
nership in the Hamilton Agency. 

He turned his eyes to the left and he sought and 
immediately found a tall, tapered, solitary steeple. He 
could not see his home; he could not see even the 
church building below the steeple but, almost as vividly 
as though he stared upon it, there formed before him 
the wide, grassy lot of the church enclosure, surrounded 
by a picket fence which ran around both the plain, 
poor, white clapboard church and the plainer, poorer, 
white clapboard cottage beside it. 

Often when he thought of the church and of his 
home, the soul of them seemed to be his mother, his 
gentle, loving, patient and dutiful mother who was busy 



206 


FIDELIA 


every waking moment at some task about the house or 
for her children or for her husband or for the church. 
At this moment, David did not think of his mother; 
the soul of that steeple, the soul of that home, the very 
soul of the town itself seemed to be his father. Not 
only to David but to every one in this town his father’s 
pronouncements were known. Men could defy them, 
as David himself had defied them; but no one could 
ignore them. They cast on the defensive the proprietor 
of the pool hall, Cullen, and Lorber, Mr. Fuller and 
David himself; for his father fought for a standard of 
life—a bigoted and narrow and out-of-date standard, 
men might say; David himself might say it—still it 
was a standard for decency and right. Suppose that 
standard altogether fell, David thought. Suppose his 
father deserted it; suppose his father abandoned the 
faith, which David himself was denying. Suppose 
that steeple, with no belief below it, merely pointed to 
an empty sky. 

The idea shook David; he caught at Fidelia’s sleeve. 
“There’s father’s church,” he said huskily and tried to 
clear his throat and could not. “Our house is right 
beside it.” 

The train stopped and, when the parlor-car porter 
had raised the trap over the steps and placed his little 
stool for Fidelia’s feet, David followed his wife to the 
ground. Idlers, who always were about the station, 
saw her and came closer, staring; they saw David, the 
preacher’s son, coming from the parlor car. “Hello, 
Dave!” they hailed in frank surprise. 

David replied to them by name and he drew Fidelia 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


207 


from them. She knew that he had not written to his 
family to tell the train upon which he and she would 
arrive; and he had explained to her that, except by 
appointment, no driver met a train at Itanaca. If any¬ 
one wanted a car, he walked across the road to the Ford 
garage; but no one hired a car to go to the Methodist 
parsonage; at least, no Herrick ever did. The house 
was hardly a half mile from the station. 

“Of course well walk,” Fidelia said and she took 
from the porter her box of roses and the long, narrow 
package of the parasol. David picked up their suit¬ 
case and her huge basket of chocolates; the flush of his 
feeling for his father was gone. At any moment he 
might meet his father; or he might see his mother in 
Harder’s or at the counter of the butcher shop select¬ 
ing, with her scrupulous care, a good cut of cheap 
meat. But on the street he saw no one of his family. 
Many friends spoke to him and every one stared at 
Fidelia; several stopped him. “This is your wife, 
Dave?” they asked. 

Every one knew he had been married; so his father 
must have told them; his father would not depute to 
any one else the task of telling his congregation that 
his son secretly had married a girl whom the family 
had not yet met. But Fidelia amazed them. No one 
was prepared to see David Herrick bring home a girl 
like her. 

“They’re nice people here,” Fidelia said to him, 
when she and he walked on alone. 

“Anybody ought to be nice to you!” David re¬ 
plied. She was kept flushed by the many meetings 




208 


FIDELIA 


and the warmth of the walk. “They all like you!” he 
declared. “They never saw anybody as beautiful as 
you before.” 

He and she were alone when they reached the picket 
fence. “Here’s home,” David said. 

At this hour of a summer afternoon, the shadow of 
the steeple fell across the path to the house; and David 
stood in the shadow after he opened the gate. 

The church was closed and quiet; the cottage was as 
quiet, although the door and windows stood open. No 
one was in sight. 

David said: “Probably only mother and the girls 
are home. Probably they’re busy in back.” Ordi¬ 
narily he would have called out, at coming home; but 
now he did not. He led Fidelia to the door. “We’ll 
go in,” he said. 

The house within was quiet; a sweet odor, that 
of strawberries cooking, came from the kitchen. 
“Mother’s putting up preserves,” David whispered to 
Fidelia. He did not want to announce them just 
yet; he was watching Fidelia as she glanced about 
his home. 

Plain, cheap curtains, but very clean, hung at the 
windows; the carpet on the living-room floor was 
nearly threadbare. The furniture was a plain, oak 
table, dented but polished, a horse-hair covered sofa 
and a severe rocking-chair and several plain, “straight” 
chairs of differing ages and design. The wall paper 
was clean by dint of repeated rubbings with bread 
crumbs and at the cost of much of the gray and brown 
pattern which originally had decorated it. Upon the 
furniture, upon the curtains, upon the carpet, every- 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


209 


where one looked closely were proofs of repeated re¬ 
pair and care for cheap, outworn things. 

Fidelia’s eyes filled. She put down her packages 
and one of her hands sought David’s. As he felt her 
clasp, he hardened his hand within hers to oppose her 
pity for his people. 

“They don’t care whether they have things or not,” 
he whispered almost fiercely in his pride. 

He heard his mother’s voice and, in the blue ging¬ 
ham dress in which she did her cooking, she came from 
the kitchen. “David!” she cried; and then she looked 
on the beautiful, vivid girl who had come with him. 

What Fidelia saw was a woman not beautiful at all 
and who never had been beautiful. She had won¬ 
derful eyes, large and gray, of the grayness which is 
warm and friendly and patient. Her eyes were set 
rather far apart in her thin, plain face. Her body was 
very thin, even more so than Fidelia had expected 
from that dress which she had exhibited to the sales¬ 
people at Field’s. But thin as she was, she was not 
flat-bosomed; she was motherly, in spite of her thin¬ 
ness. She had brown, abundant hair, nearly half 
gray; her hands, besides being very thin, were cal¬ 
loused and wrinkled. But her eyes and her lips 
showed she was not old. As a matter of fact, she was 
barely forty-three; for she had married when she was 
twenty and David had been born within the year. 

Fidelia did not feel that she was old; she was 
younger than Fidelia had expected her to be but she 
had worn herself so much more! Fidelia thought of 
her washing and polishing and mending over and over 
the poor, cheap possessions of this house; Fidelia 




210 


FIDELIA 


thought of her accepting from neighbors worn garments 
and wearing them out, as she had worn that woolen 
dress which Fidelia had seen; Fidelia felt how she her¬ 
self and David had hurt her by marrying without even 
letting her know; and Fidelia felt from her for David 
and for Fidelia herself, only love. Fidelia sobbed. 

“Why, there!” said David’s mother and the thin 
arms were about Fidelia; and how soft the wrinkled, 
calloused hands were on Fidelia’s face. “Why, there, 
my dear—my dear!” 

“You’re so sweet!” sobbed Fidelia. “I didn’t know 
you’d be so sweet!” 

A plain quiet girl came from the kitchen. “Hello, 
Deborah,” David said. She was in blue gingham like 
her mother; she had dark hair, unlike both her mother 
and David; but she was tall like David and nearly his 
age. A little girl of ten with brown hair and big gray 
eyes stared at Fidelia. “This is Esther,” David said 
and picked her up and kissed her. 

When Fidelia’s mother released her, Fidelia sat down 
and took the little girl in her lap. Fidelia wanted to 
do something for these people and to do it at once; and 
Esther offered the chance to begin. 

“I’ve got a basket of chocolates, Esther,” she said, 
kissing the child. “A great big basket. Get it for 
me, David, please.” 

He got it and the flowers and the gay green parasol. 
So they were all about—the extravagant, long-stemmed 
roses in a white china water pitcher, the satin-lined 
candy-basket open and the parasol out of its wrappings 
—when David’s father came in. 

Fidelia, still holding the little, gray-eyed girl in her 



“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


211 


lap, looked up at the doorway to see a tall, black¬ 
haired man in black. Dark eyes—brown, they were, 
actually, though under his black brows she could not 
see the color—gazed at her. A thin, but strong look¬ 
ing hand, dark from the black hair upon the back of 
it, grasped the side of the door-way in which he stood. 

David arose; his sister Deborah arose; David’s 
mother, who had sat on the sofa, also arose; the child 
! in Fidelia’s lap, whom Fidelia was feeding chocolates, 
freed herself from Fidelia’s arms; but Fidelia did not 
get up. 

She felt, with a sudden drop from her joy in giving 
her gifts, that it was no use for her to try to please this 
man. She thought of the forty dollars she had planned 
to spend for a gift for him and thought : “Suppose 
I’d done it!” 

His eyes examined the extravagant basket beside 
her; he noticed the flowers and the gaudy parasol. 
They did not surprise him; they seemed to be what he 
expected, after seeing her. He gazed at David. 

“Father!” said David. “Father—” 

“I was at Mr. White’s when I heard you had come 
home, David,” he said. “I returned at once.” 

“Yes, father,” said David. 

His father took his hand from the doorway and 
came a few steps closer to Fidelia. “You must be my 
son’s wife,” he said slowly. “You must be—Fidelia.” 

“I’m Fidelia,” she said, frightened. Seldom indeed 
did she feel frightened; she did not know at exactly 
what she was frightened now but she was. 

“I’m glad you have come to visit us. I want you 
to take your place in my family.” 







212 


FIDELIA 


Fidelia did not know what to reply to this man; she 
did not know how to treat a man who disapproved of 
her, upon whom she made no favorable effect at all. 
She said, nervously: “We haven’t come for a visit.” 

“She means, father,” David put in quickly, “we’ve 
come down just for the day. I’ve got to go back to¬ 
morrow night.” 

His father turned to him. “Why must you go 
back?” 

“For business, father.” 

“Your automobile business, that is.” 

“That’s my business, father.” 

“Yes,” his father said, as though he had had to 
recollect. “Of course that’s your business.” 

Then David saw that his father was shaking. His 
father said: “Come to my room after a minute, 
David.” 

His father faced Fidelia again. “This is now your 
home,” he announced to her. “You will always be 
welcome here; always,” he repeated. 

When his father left the room, David went to his 
wife and kissed her; then, quivering himself, he sought 
his father in the church. 

His father’s room—the chamber his father meant 
when he said “my room”—was a small, square apart¬ 
ment under the church steeple which a man less given 
to the plainest in speech and thought would have called 
his “study.” It contained the books which his father 
had had at the Seminary, the later-bought volumes of 
sermons, The Life of Christ, four brown backs of 
Josephus and the dictionary of the Bible in three 
severe, regular rows upon home carpentered pine 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


213 


shelves; it contained a flat, deal table, with a drawer, 
which his father used for a desk and two straight, 
cheap chairs and a swivel chair bought, secondhand, 
at a sheriff’s sale when a local insurance agency had 
failed. The square of brown carpet was a masterpiece 
of matched ends and corners which had been trimmed 
off when a new strip was laid in the aisle of the church 
below. 

There were four tall, narrow windows, one in each 
wall; and a characteristic of the room was that, late in 
the afternoon, the sun shone straight through it, in 
the west window and out the east. David knew no 
other room where the sun did that. The rising sun 
similarly shone through to the west, of course; and 
David, from his window in the house, used to watch 
the gleaming spot in the shadow of the steeple. That 
light, shining through, used to seem a mystic symbol 
of special power endowed upon his father in that room. 
There his father went to write his sermons; there he 
went to meditate and pray when perplexities came upon 
him; there his father, alone, underwent those spiritual 
experiences when he “felt the presence of God.” 

To David, this room was more a solemn place of 
God than the pulpit in the church below. Sometimes, 
such as on Christmas day and during Sunday school 
entertainments, there might be merriment in the 
church but never was there merriment or lightness 
here. No one ever visited this room except on a seri¬ 
ous errand; no child from the cottage ever played here. 

A large, black Bible always was upon the desk; it 
was there now and it was open at some place in the 
new testament, David saw. His father sat before it 


214 


FIDELIA 


and facing the door at the top of the winding steps 
which David had climbed. The shaft of the sun, pass¬ 
ing through the room, was between David and his 
father. 

“I want you to tell me about your marriage,” 
Ephraim Herrick said at once in his direct way which 
scorned euphonies and preliminaries. He had a letter 
on his table beside his Bible and David recognized it 
for the letter which he had written from camp. 

“What do you want to know?” David asked. 

“Why you married secretly—that is, secretly as far 
as your family was concerned.” 

“Because I’d broken my engagement with Alice,” 
David answered abruptly. “I wrote you that.” 

“Yes,” his father said. “You wrote me that; but 
you did not write that it was for the purpose of marry¬ 
ing some one else. Why didn’t you?” 

“Because I knew you’d never approve of Fidelia, 
father; because—because I loved her, father, and I 
meant to marry her, no matter what you’d say. And 
I did it.” 

“Yes,” said his father. “You have brought me an 
accomplished fact. It is very different from a mere 
wish or purpose. Fidelia has become your wife; you 
are her husband. God has joined you.” 

David jerked, involuntarily, as his father’s voice 
gave him a vision of God—the God of his childhood, 
whose presence often was here under the steeple and 
who had joined David to Fidelia, however David de¬ 
nied him. 

“I wouldn’t have brought you an accomplished fact,” 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


215 


David said, “if it would have been better in any way 
to have told you. Before I borrowed that money 
from Mr. Fuller, I told you what I was going to do; 
you said about everything you could to me to stop 
me from going into business and particularly to stop 
my taking that money; but I went into business. Now 
I’ve married.” 

“I have never denied you the right to marry.” 

“You did not want me to marry Alice; so it would’ve 
been worse if you’d seen Fidelia, I knew.” 

“How did you know that?” 

“Because she’s further from your idea of a wife for 
me than Alice ever was. When I wrote you the note 
from college to say that I wasn’t going to marry Alice, 
I wrote some more to you,” David proceeded steadily. 
“I didn’t send it. I think I remember just what I 
said. I wrote: ‘A girl has come to college who is 
the type you would find more detrimental to me than 
Alice. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I 
know almost nothing of her character except that she 
is pleasant and she’s strong in physical endurance and 
keeps cheerful hour after hour under trying condi¬ 
tions. The truth is, I think almost nothing about her 
character and less about her religious faith. I love 
her. 

“ ‘You wouldn’t call it love. You’d say I desire 
her. Well, I do; and I mean to marry her.’ That’s 
what I wrote and it’s all true—except that she is cheer- 
fuller and pleasanter day after day than ever I’d 
thought she could be. I’ve married her and I’m happy 
with her. Father, I didn’t know what happiness could 


216 


FIDELIA 


be till I married her. It’s good and right to be happy, 
father; and I’m happy as I never supposed I could be, 
happy—” 

“Happy!” His father arose with his hand on his 
table; he leaned forward so that the sun, striking 
through the room, shone on his face. “ ‘But and if 
ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye! If ye 
be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye!’ 
They are the words of Peter, the Apostle, if you forget 
them, my son; they are the words he wrote when the 
Roman world was sinking in lust and giving itself to 
physical pleasures, as our world does to-day. ‘But and 
if ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye!’ 

“I wanted you for the work of God; I wanted you 
for that happiness some day, and in your right time, 
my son. You turned from it first to go into business 
to make money and now you’ve married for physical 
happiness. I said everything I could to stop you from 
going into business; that’s true. Not because busi¬ 
ness is wrong or sinful but because it is wrong for you. 
I feel as I do about Fidelia, not because marriage is 
wrong, but because I know this marriage is dangerous 
to you. And you know it; that is why you concealed 
it from me, that was why you knew I would have 
stopped you, if I could. 

“But now you are man and wife. God has joined 
you. God works in his own way; and perhaps, per¬ 
haps his way of going about the redemption of you 
was to double the difficulty of your redemption and 
break you first under the burden. Perhaps that is it.” 

In the evening David telephoned to Mr. Fuller, from 
whom he had borrowed the ten thousand dollars, and 


“BUT AND IF YE SUFFER” 


217 


he asked when he could call. “Any time,” said Mr. 
Fuller cordially. “And bring along that wife of yours 
I’m hearing about.” So David and Fidelia went to 
Mr. Fuller’s on the next afternoon. 

Fuller was delighted with Fidelia; and when David 
and she were leaving, Mr. Fuller detained David at the 
door. 

“Boy, you’ve a wonderful wife, you certainly made 
a great move for yourself when you married that girl,” 
Fuller praised David. “She’ll be a big asset to you 
in business.” 


I 


CHAPTER XIX 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


IDELIA surprised David, when they were on 



the train for Chicago, by proposing a plan for 


their immediate domestic arrangements. He 
had intended to return to the Blackstone for another 
day or so while they could look around for permanent 
quarters. 

“I know just the place,” Fidelia announced. 

It was a new, residence hotel built close to the lake 
on the shore about a mile south of Alice’s home; it was 
an unusually well-planned and pleasant hotel, with all 
the modern, popular features for making its guests 
comfortable and furnishing them entertainment. Its 
nearness to the Sothrons bothered David but he felt 
that he should not object for that reason; so Fidelia 
and he went to the hotel from the train and had their 
trunks brought from down town the next day. 

In the evening, while Fidelia was finishing her set¬ 
tling into their new room, David took a walk alone up 
the shore drive to within sight of Alice’s home. The 
house was dark and, going closer, he saw that shutters 
were on the lower windows. He tried the iron gate 
and found it locked. 

When he reported this to Fidelia, upon his return to 
the hotel, she said: “Why, Mr. and Mrs. Sothron and 
Alice are all away in Europe. It was in the society 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 219 

column the other day. They’ll be gone all summer 
or at least Alice and her mother will.” 

David thought of the plan which Alice and he had 
made. According to it, they would have been settled 
now in a flat upon one of the streets a half mile west 
of the lake in a neighborhood of moderate rents, where 
many young married people of the Sothrons’ acquaint¬ 
ance were living. If he and she had carried through 
their plan, Alice would not have gone away this sum¬ 
mer. He wondered how often their plan came to her 
mind and whether she found herself reckoning what 
she and he might be doing, if they had gone on as they 
had intended. 

He found himself thinking of the people whom he 
had met through Alice and who naturally would have 
become his friends, if Alice and he had married. Oc¬ 
casionally he saw them on the street or in a car and, 
though they always spoke to him, no one suggested 
any improvement of acquaintance with him. The 
men were just the sort he would have liked to know; 
and he would have liked Fidelia to make friends with 
their wives. Instead, she had to make her own 
friends at the hotel; and it was amazing to David how 
many friends she made, both women and men, and how 
the life of the hotel occupied her. 

His day and hers began early; for he had his habit 
of early rising and Fidelia always got up with him. 
They slipped into bathing suits and, with moccasins 
on bare feet and robes about them, they went down to 
the water. He usually dove first and when he came 
up, she dived. He caught her as she came to the top 
and they laughed and splashed at each other and 


220 


FIDELIA 


climbed up and dived again. Then they swam out, 
side by side, into the deep water. 

“You go back now,” David would warn her. 

Upon such an occasion, and upon such alone, she 
disobeyed him. “I’m going out if you are.” 

So, after a moment more, he would turn back; she 
turned, swimming strongly beside him, her bare arms 
just under the surface of the water. 

Her glorious hair was hidden under a rubber hel¬ 
met cap but her face was never less feminine for that. 
He whispered to her, when they were alone, “You’re 
the loveliest that ever lived.” When others were about, 
he watched them gaze at her and he exulted that she 
was his. 

When they dressed in their room, Fidelia shook down 
her hair, for in spite of her cap, always some edge got 
wet, and the glorious red gold of her hair lay upon the 
clear, pink pearl of her fair shoulders. David had 
breakfast brought to their room. He dressed for 
breakfast and sometimes she did; but usually she got 
into a dressing-gown and left her hair down over her 
shoulders and she sat at the side of the table in the sun. 

At eight, promptly, he left for his office and he sel¬ 
dom returned before six, for the Hamilton car was 
attracting real attention on motorcar “row.” Old, 
established agencies for other cars began taking notice 
of Snelgrove-Herrick and they paid the new model the 
compliment of knocking it. David encountered un¬ 
expected difficulties in selling the new shipments from 
the factory; but he was used to difficulties and he 
honestly liked hard work. For him, the idleness of 
honeymoon days was definitely ended; but the return 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


221 


to the city brought no serious occupation to fill 
Fidelia’s days. 

David bothered about it, at first, when he observed 
that, after he left her, she seemed to spend about half 
of each morning in their room; for if he telephoned to 
her before eleven o’clock, she usually answered from 
the room. After eleven, the switchboard girl either 
offered to “page” Mrs. Herrick or reported definitely, 
“Mrs. Herrick is out.” So when David found he 
would have noontime free, he learned to phone before 
eleven, if he wanted his wife to lunch in town with him. 
When he asked her, she always came, though she 
seemed always to have a luncheon engagement for any 
day he did not ask her. 

She was “out” so regularly in the afternoon that he 
gave up phoning then. At night, she liked to tell him 
where she had been and what she had done. “It was 
auction, David, at half-cent points. Gertrude and 
I—” Gertrude was a Mrs. Vredick, of about Fidelia’s 
age, who was one of her first friends at the hotel— 
“we won six dollars.” Oh perhaps “it” had been a 
matinee or a motion picture with tea or a soda after¬ 
wards. Or Gertrude and she had been shopping; or 
they had had their fortunes told. Sometimes she had 
spent almost the entire afternoon with Gertrude, or 
some other friend, in a hair-dresser’s going through the 
leisurely and agreeable “getting” of a manicure, or a 
shampoo and a “wave.” But she always was in their 
room, or at least in the hotel, when he returned; al¬ 
ways she was ready to go out with him anywhere to 
dinner or to the theater, to dance at the hotel or to do 
with him whatever else he wanted. And day after 


222 FIDELIA 

day she went on thus cheerfully and with every evi¬ 
dence of content. 

David did not understand how she could; but he 
did not speak to her about it. He wondered over it 
by himself as he lived with her and watched her. 

It would have been easy to understand if he could 
consider it a merely temporary period with her while 
she was waiting for a child; but she was not awaiting a 
child. The greatest part of David’s wonder about her 
was that she did not want a child soon. 

He had never discussed children with her before 
their marriage, as he had done with Alice when he and 
she were engaged and when Alice and he had agreed 
that they wanted four children and they would want 
the first child in their first year. He had simply as¬ 
sumed that, if any girl would want a child, Fidelia 
surely would; but she did not. “Not now, David!” 
she appealed to him, when he spoke of it to her. “Oh, 
I want a baby but—not yet, David.” 

The time, he thought, surely should be the woman’s 
affair; yet she surprised him. He was certain that it 
was no physical fear which constrained her; he could 
not think of her physically afraid and what a perfect 
body she had for motherhood! 

He felt, very vaguely at first and then not more defi¬ 
nitely but more strongly, the existence of a reason 
which she would not confide to him; but it did not 
disturb his happiness with her when they locked their 
door upon themselves alone and left the world far, far 
away. It was as when he followed her into the magic 
valley of the Titans which made him, with her, a god 
responsible to no one. 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


223 


When the sun, striking in through their window, 
awakened them, often they lay and, merely by looking 
beyond the window and not seeing the frame, they 
gazed upon the sun rising from the water and felt 
themselves alone on the edge of Creation and they said 
that they alone lived fifty thousand years ago or a mil¬ 
lion ages away in time to come. Of course they could 
have it whatever they wished for one can argue any 
age, or any youth, to sky and water and sun. 

October came with no change in the manner of life 
at the hotel except that the morning swim in the lake 
was omitted since the water was cold. The month 
brought a lull at the office. The closed-car models 
were in and being delivered; they were proving very 
satisfactory and David did not have to work so hard 
as in the summer. 

He had plenty of energy and he had a feeling of 
laxness at not doing more and at spending evening 
after evening at dancing, at cards with the Vredicks, 
at a theater alone with Fidelia or in some party she 
got up. He enjoyed the evenings and he was doing 
so well that the expense of the frequent entertain¬ 
ments did not worry him but afterwards he felt guilty 
about them. He explained it as the result of his habit 
of doing double work in the fall when he used to be 
in college and working to support himself and for 
money to send home. 

He missed something else which he could not feel 
more exactly than as an unexpected lack of full satis¬ 
faction in what he was doing. When he had been in 
the University and also dealing in secondhand cars, 


224 


FIDELIA 


it seemed to him that nothing could be better than to 
be able to give all his time to this agency which he had 
now procured; and he did enjoy his success, but he 
missed college. He missed not only the companion¬ 
ship of Lan and Bill Fraser and the other fellows who 
had lived in the Delta A house with him for four 
years; he missed classes, too, and the agreeable sense 
of advancement one had when in college and each day 
progressing nearer to the desirable and honorable goal 
of graduation. He did not suspect, until now, how 
much of his satisfaction in being in business, when he 
was in college, had come from his working for money, 
not for its own sake, but to earn him his education and 
to help out at home. 

He was still helping out at home and that gave him 
satisfaction. He was not working for money simply 
to spend upon pleasant living for his wife and himself. 

He remembered how Alice said he never could work 
just for money for pleasure. He remembered how 
she said it when in his arms that night he defied Eter¬ 
nity and she and he set the date upon which they 
would be married. 

She came home in the last week in October. Fi¬ 
delia read to David, from the society column, the 
announcement that the Sothron home on Sheridan 
Road was re-opened and that Mrs. Walter Sothron 
and her daughter had returned from Europe. 

David met her about a week later. He had driven 
north in the afternoon to take home a customer, a 
woman, who had bought a car from him and who 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


225 


found herself too timid to drive it, alone. She hap¬ 
pened to live only a couple of miles north of his hotel, 
so after leaving his customer and her car at home, he 
decided to walk, as the day was clear and pleasant. 

When driving, he had passed the Sothron house 
and he had seen that it was open and as he neared 
it on foot, he watched the door and the walk; but 
no one went in or out. He was a block past the 
house and the stir which it had roused was subsiding 
within him when he recognized Alice approaching from 
the south. 

In his confusion of feelings, he became keenly self- 
conscious of his new clothes. He had on a new, well- 
tailored suit, a new, light overcoat and new hat, evi¬ 
dences of much money spent upon himself, evidences 
also of great difference in him from the David who 
used to debate with her whether he “ought” to pay to 
have an overcoat made for himself. 

He proceeded until he was within a few paces of 
her and then he halted; she came nearly to him and 
he thought, for a moment, that she meant merely to 
speak to him and pass. She spoke but she did not 
pass and he took off his hat and held it at his side. 

“How do you do, David?” she asked, in her quiet 
way and her blue eyes looked up steadily at him. 

He said: “I saw in the paper that you were home.” 

It sounded as though his presence near her home 
was a result of his having seen the item in the paper. 
He asked, quickly: “You had a good trip?” 

“Yes.” 

He looked down, not at her eyes, he looked at the 


226 


FIDELIA 


walk, at the tips of her small, pretty shoes. He 
glanced at her hands. How often he had clasped 
them! She asked: “Where are you living? ,, 

The way she said “you” included Fidelia with him. 
He told her: “Right down here at the hotel.” 

She turned enough to glance toward the hotel. 
“You’re near,” she said. 

“Yes.” 

“You must be doing well, David,” she continued, 
still gazing toward the hotel; then she looked at him 
and noticed his clothes. 

“I am, Alice. The car’s turned out a good one.” 

“I heard so.” 

He wanted to ask her how she had heard; but the 
fact that she, who had planned his business so inti¬ 
mately with him, now had to hear through a third 
person how it was going, shook them both. 

“I suppose,” she started and stopped and, after 
swallowing, she said, “I suppose you’re able to start 
already paying back Mr. Fuller, though you didn’t 
have to till January.” 

How his arrangements hung in her mind! It was 
not strange for they had been her arrangements too. 

“We could pay off something now—I mean Snel- 
grove and I,” he particularized his “we.” He had 
meant Snelgrove and himself, not Fidel:a and him¬ 
self ; he never thought of Fidelia with him in the busi¬ 
ness although he realized that always, with Alice, he 
had said “we,” for her and him, when making the 
plan. “But Mr. Fuller doesn’t want us to lower our 
balance yet. He’s well satisfied.” 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


227 


Alice asked: “How’s your father, David?” 

“The same,” David answered, shortly. 

At last Alice asked: “How is Fidelia?” And when 
she did it, another part of their plan—Alice’s plan and 
his—was in his mind. It was the part of their plan 
which hoped that she would bear a child in their first 
year. 

“She’s—the same,” said David and Alice gazed into 
his eyes and she left him. 

Upon this afternoon, Fidelia was not in when he 
reached the hotel for he was considerably earlier than 
usual. She returned at her customary time and, open¬ 
ing the door of their room, she came upon David sit¬ 
ting in the dark by the window. 

“Why, what’s happened?” she cried and she 
switched on the light. 

“Nothing,” denied David. “I had a ‘drive home’ 
up this way a while ago and there was no use going 
back to the office.” He kissed his wife and she asked 
no more but waited. 

She began taking off her suit to dress for dinner and 
while he was changing his shirt, he said: “I was up 
beyond the Sothrons’ and I walked back. I ran across 
Alice.” 

Fidelia made no comment immediately and he did 
not look at her. In a moment she said: “You surely 
stopped to speak to her, David.” 

“Yes. She had a good trip. I told her we were liv¬ 
ing here. She asked about business and for father 
and you.” 

Fidelia went on undressing and when she next spoke 


228 


FIDELIA 


it was to tell him lightly where she had been that 
afternoon and David had no idea of how she dwelt on 
the incident. 

She recorded it carefully in her diary as soon as he 
left her alone the next morning. 

An inevitable effect of such recording, which Fidelia 
did not appreciate, was to give more weight to some 
circumstances than they perhaps merited. It was her 
nature to exaggerate her feelings and she wrote, in 
part: “I came in on David to-night in the dark; and 
it gave me a start! I knew right away he had had 
some experience. He had; he’d seen Alice for the first 
time since we’ve been married. Of course he’d feel 
badly and be sorry for her. I am. But he wasn’t just 
sorry for her; he was thinking about her; he wanted to 
think about her there by himself; that’s why he was 
sitting alone in the dark. 

“There’s things between them that stay with him 
and I don’t make him forget. I feel it a lot of times. 
She’s got a hold on him that he can’t help and maybe 
I can’t. . . . His father’s got another hold on him. 
Sometimes I’m much more afraid of that, though David 
and I are man and wife now and that means forever 
with father Herrick. But if he ever found out about 
Lakoon, and it turns out I’m wrong, I guess he’d not 
stop at anything with me.” 

In several entries in her diary of following days, 
she made similar reference to the possibility of her 
being “wrong” about an event which she described no 
more definitely than “Lakoon.” It was in her mind, 
troubling her again and again. One morning she 
wrote: “I am sure about it; I’ve every reason to feel 


RESPONSIBLE TO NONE 


229 


sure. Any one would say so: but I don’t absolutely 
know . Something might be known now that I haven’t 
heard; of course that something might be either way. 
Flora would have heard, if any one did. I’ll write 
Flora.” 

Several days later she again inscribed: “I ought to 
write Flora.” But she did not; she put it off and off, 
lulling her fears by various visits to fortune tellers. 
From the past, there was nothing of great account to 
trouble her, they said. 

























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PART II 


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CHAPTER XX 


“pleasure is the end!” 

F IDELIA was brushing her hair beside an open 
window where the sun streamed in. It was an 
August sun, clear and hot and ten o’clock high 
in a turquoise sky. The lake under her window re¬ 
flected the lucent blue and tinged it with a tint like 
the pale jade of the bracelet upon her arm. She 
slipped off the circlet of polished stone and held it 
before the water to compare the colors. She sang 
quietly as she resumed her brushing of her hair. 
David had gone to the office more than an hour ago, 
leaving her alone. 

This room of hers high above the water and with 
wide, pleasant windows to the east and south was a 
particularly delightful “living-room” with its soft, blue 
rug and big, blue lounge, with pretty table and a desk 
and chairs painted that hue of gray which is gay and 
made more cheerful by little lines and designs in 
brighter color. There were bookshelves and books, a 
parchment-shaded lamp and a small, beautiful grand 
piano which was open. It was always open and with 
music on the rack. A dozen times a day Fidelia 
slipped into the piano seat and played; she loved to 
play but not to practice. 

Beyond the blue Japanese screen before the door¬ 
way was a white and blue bath where also the sun 
233 


234 


FIDELIA 


shone in; and next was a bedroom, for Fidelia and 
David had a suite at the hotel now. 

Fidelia had just finished doing her diary. In her 
locked trunk, which was in the hotel store-room, were 
fifteen red volumes, three new ones added to the twelve 
she had brought with her to Mrs. Fansler’s, and the 
red bound book which lay open before Fidelia, with 
its pages for this morning filled, carried the record of 
Fidelia Herrick past the third anniversary of her mar¬ 
riage to David and up to this morning in the second 
month of their fourth year. 

It was a record which might have dismayed Fidelia 
if she ever totalled the sum of her doings and reckoned 
the result of her days; but she never thought of any¬ 
thing like that. She often referred back to old vol¬ 
umes but only to reread certain pages or passages 
which she wished more vividly to recall. Yet the rec¬ 
ord emphasized her consciousness of certain tenden¬ 
cies such as the greater and greater infrequency of 
David’s and her visits to Itanaca. As a consequence 
of the cessation of their visits, father Herrick was 
taking every opportunity to come to Chicago; he had 
arrived in the city on church business yesterday and 
looked in upon David at his office. This morning 
father Herrick was coming to call upon Fidelia. 

“He’s simply going to make himself feel more ter¬ 
ribly about me,” Fidelia said. “That’s what he al¬ 
ways does.” 

She did not like to be a subject of distress to him 
but she had just about abandoned the making of ef¬ 
forts to please him. What was the use when he was 
sure to see wrong in the most innocent things you did? 


“PLEASURE IS THE END!” 


235 


A pack of cards lay upon her table and, as she 
picked them up, idly, she thought how he condemned 
cards whether you played with them for money or not 
or whether you simply dealt them to tell your fortune. 

She shuffled and began dealing her fortune, as she 
often did and she forgot father Herrick as she dealt 
a card to the right and a card to the left. The fall 
of cards upon the right-hand pile was to tell her for¬ 
tune in respect to the fortune of the pile to the left, 
which was Alice Sothron’s; for it was Alice who was 
in her mind. 

Alice was at home this summer in the big house a 
mile up the shore. In every previous summer Alice 
had gone away, either to Europe or to the Atlantic coast 
or to the Colorado mountains. This was a summer 
when Alice might have remained at home for a number 
of reasons entirely unconnected with David and Fidelia 
Herrick but Fidelia never thought of Alice doing any¬ 
thing without having David in mind. Alice was still 
unmarried and though Fidelia knew that she often 
went out with men, yet Fidelia knew also that Alice 
never was seen frequently with the same man. Now 
and then, in the three years, Fidelia had happened to 
meet Alice and Fidelia knew that Alice had never 
given up David. 

Her idea of Alice disturbed Fidelia this August more 
than before; for Fidelia was feeling that David was 
not as happy as he had been. She was sure he still 
loved her; she did not think of him wishing for Alice, 
or for any one else, in place of her. She loved David; 
but in spite of their love for each other, he was less 
happy. 


236 


FIDELIA 


It could not be the result of business troubles, she 
knew; for business was good; and he denied that the 
widening break between his father and himself 
bothered him. Yet David was less happy. So Fidelia 
was dealing her cards of fortune, one to the right, one 
to the left, when some one knocked at her door. 

This was no timid knock of a chamber-maid or of a 
boy bringing up letters; it was the positive summons 
of a man full of his message and although it was nearly 
an hour earlier than she expected father Herrick, 
Fidelia knew it was he; his rap was as unmistakable as 
though she saw him. 

For an instant she had a desire to have her hair 
“up” and arranged and to be in her suit as though 
she were going out or at least as though she had some 
occupation in prospect. She started to gather up the 
cards; then she desisted and left them on the table 
and merely closed her diary before she called: 
“Come in.” 

As the door opened, she arose and father Herrick 
gazed at her and then glanced past her at the cards. 
He said: “I have interrupted you, Fidelia.” 

“No; come in, father Herrick,” she invited, but 
he stepped back from the door as he again observed 
her. 

“I will wait, Fidelia,” he said sternly. “When you 
are ready, you may let me know.” 

Fidelia flushed but she was glad she had left the 
cards spread out. Since it shocked him, anyway, to 
find her as she was, she liked to give him an extra 
fillip; but he always succeeded in making her sorry. 


237 


“PLEASURE IS THE END!” 

“Good Heavens!” she exclaimed as he shut himself 
out. “Good Heavens!” 

Ephraim Herrick waited in the hall at a window 
which looked toward the city. He heard doors open 
behind him; he never turned to see but he imagined 
women in negligee passing back and forth and he 
stood straighter and more sternly in his black coat to 
rebuke them. He looked down upon the calm, lan¬ 
guid lake upon which little boats idled out from the 
green and yellow shore. He looked upon luxurious 
dwellings, some of them separate mansions with gay, 
striped awnings spread to the sun, with pergolas and 
gardens above the water; some of them were aggrega¬ 
tions of many dwellings under one roof, apartment 
buildings which fostered the idle, indulgent habits 
which Ephraim Herrick deplored. Strong as was his 
feeling against these rows and rows of flats, yet it was 
nothing in intensity compared to his abomination of 
the hotel and of the idle, self-indulgent life lived by 
those who made the hotel their home. 

His feeling of the sloth of these surroundings, just 
now exacerbated by the sight of his son’s wife seated 
in a painted chair with her hair down and playing with 
cards at half past ten in the morning, was whipped 
again by the soft, indolent voices of other women and 
by his view, from the window, of the luxurious and 
seductive shore. 

Fidelia came into the hall. Her hair was now up 
and she wore a plain, white skirt and white linen blouse 
and she had changed from her slippers to white ox¬ 
fords; but since Ephraim Herrick was not turning 


238 


FIDELIA 


about at the sound of opening doors, he did not see 
her and she did not speak for an instant while she 
stood struck by the likeness of father Herrick’s pos¬ 
ture to David’s when he was thoughtful. 

Here was the same squareness of shoulder, the same 
lift of the head, the same pressure of vigor. The back 
of his head was identical with David’s; it was long and 
handsomely modeled and forceful. But father Her¬ 
rick’s hair was not brown like David’s but was black; 
it was cut in country fashion, rounded and not 
“feathered” at the back of the neck. Although father 
Herrick was fifty this summer, his hair was still 
nearly jet black; and his figure was spare and as 
straight as David’s. 

“Will you come in now, father Herrick?” Fidelia 
asked. 

When he turned he looked old; he was looking much 
more than three years older than he had appeared when 
she first saw him, Fidelia thought. His face had be¬ 
come deeply lined and his mouth more habitually som¬ 
ber; but his eyes were the same, his dark, vigorous 
eyes. They never seemed satisfied with contours, as 
most men’s were; they seemed to be always burrowing 
inside one and making one—at least they always made 
Fidelia—uncomfortable. 

Never in the three years she had known him had he 
once told her that she was beautiful; never had he 
noticed, approvingly, any prettiness of her attire. He 
seemed always to make his own a rebuke to lightness 
and color; for habitually he wore a black suit and a 
white shirt with never a dot or line or design in the 
linen; he wore a stiff, wing collar with a white lawn tie 


PLEASURE IS THE END! 


239 


and black, high shoes. In her presence, he kept his 
coat buttoned, no matter how hot the day; and Fidelia 
had never seen him except when he was clean-shaven, 
but his beard was so heavy that it darkened his skin. 

Knowing that he and his wife and six children had 
lived together in a small, crowded house, Fidelia never 
could have understood how he had maintained the 
separateness from them which all his children felt, 
unless she had visited Itanaca and seen him at home 
and, in particular, unless she had learned about his 
room in the tower under the steeple. 

She had seen, at one of her visits, that there was a 
screen in the bedroom which he shared with his wife 
and she had learned that his wife dressed behind 
this screen, when he was in the room. As his wife and 
he occupied the same bed, Fidelia could not follow 
the direction of his ideas of modesty at all. 

He said to her, gesturing to the door with the hand 
in which he held his black, felt hat: a Go in.” 

“How is mother Herrick?” Fidelia inquired, as she 
obeyed. 

“She is as usual, recently,” he replied. 

“No better?” Fidelia asked and she flushed with 
feeling for the thin mother with warm, gray eyes and 
sweet smile who always kissed her and liked to call her 
“daughter.” Mother Herrick was not as strong as 
usual this summer, Deborah had written to David. 

Ephraim Herrick, having already answered Fidelia’s 
question, ignored its repetition. He stepped into the 
room and felt assailed by a personal offense from the 
gay luxuriousness of this suite of his son. Such liv¬ 
ing held no proper place in his scheme of things. 


240 


FIDELIA 


The men who had taught him, and those who had 
taught them, had been Bible-reading, Hell-fearing men 
who had moved out of New England and into western 
Pennsylvania and Ohio and on into Indiana and Il¬ 
linois in advance of the vanities and despising them. 
When these men ceased to go westward and when they 
settled and luxury and easy-living came about them, 
they did not therefore cast off their stern ideas; on the 
contrary they founded colleges to train men to their 
ideals of Christian service and seminaries to teach 
their creed of high-thinking and self-discipline to com¬ 
bat the new allures to self-indulgence. 

They enlisted in a losing fight but, to the end, they 
fought the fight—most of them; they finished their 
course so keeping their faith that they inspired a few, 
at least, to devote their lives to keep up the combat. 
To Ephraim Herrick, the long, hard example of his 
own struggle never seemed so despised as now when he 
stepped into this room of his son which the girl, who 
a moment ago was idling at cards with her hair over 
her shoulders, shared with his David. 

He was in distress, Fidelia saw; and she saw that he 
was perspiring and she longed to unbutton his coat. 
She could not do that so she crossed to the bedroom 
door and brought ice-water to him. It was in a gayly 
painted carafe upon a lacquer tray with two iridescent 
glasses and these elaborate trappings for a swallow 
of water offended him; but he drank. 

He sat down and Fidelia seated herself upon her 
painted chair and watched him. He had come with a 
determination in no way to compromise with the duty 


PLEASURE IS THE END!” 


241 


upon his soul; and soon he started by asking directly: 
“You are still satisfied here, Fidelia?” 

“Why, yes,” she said, not thinking. 

“This completely satisfies you?” 

“What?” she asked now. 

“This life you lead.” 

“Why,” she said “why-” 

“You think,” he demanded, “that this can go on 
indefinitely?” 

“Why, yes,” Fidelia said but she was not thinking at 
all of what he said; for he always said much the same 
thing. She was thinking, after having noticed again 
his likeness to David: “I mean absolutely nothing to 
him. If David grew to be like him, I’d mean abso¬ 
lutely nothing to David.” 

Now she heard father Herrick asking her something 
more which required an answer. “Do you never con¬ 
sider how all this must pass away?” 

‘“All what?” she asked. 

“These,” he said, motioning with his hand to her 
painted chairs, to her iridescent glasses and her 
pretty rug; at least she supposed he was pointing to 
the chair and the glasses and the rug—“these vain 
things to which you give your life.” 

“Yes,” she responded; and he demanded, “Fidelia, 
what was in your mind while I was speaking to 
you?” 

“Why,” said Fidelia, honestly. “I was wondering 
how much you ever were like David.” 

He said: “Very much, as David once was.” And 
Fidelia jumped. 


242 


FIDELIA 


“Fidelia,” he said. “Here is the matter upon which 
I have come this morning. I might have come about 
it before; probably I should have but now I can put 
it off no longer. David and you have been married 
for three years, for more than three years. You have 
no children, Fidelia. Is it because God has forbidden 
them?” 

“No,” answered Fidelia. 

“You do, then.” 

“Yes,” said Fidelia. 

“So I was sure; I was sure,” he repeated. 

Fidelia caught breath and leaned toward him and 
suddenly she was pale. “You mean—David told 
you?” 

“No; David would not discuss it with me. But I 
know my son; I know he would want a child, at least.” 

“Yes,” said Fidelia. “Yes.” 

“Why don’t you?” 

“I don’t, father Herrick!” she cried quickly and 
piteously. 

“Why not?” he pursued her. “Because of this?” 
he gestured. “Because you prefer this, you live for 
this—this—” 

His hand was going again and for a second time it 
accused objects, her painted chairs and the Japanese 
tray, her piano and the gay glasses; then it came to a 
stop at the door of the bedroom. 

“No; no; no; no!” Fidelia cried pitifully; and he 
ceased. He had never seen her pitiful before and it 
bewildered him and made him less certain. He said: 
“Fidelia, you want to please my son?” 

“Of course, father!” 


“PLEASURE IS THE END!” 243 

“Then have your children, Fidelia. Have them, I 
warn you.” 

“But I can’t!” 

“Why not?” 

“I can’t tell you.” 

She was piteous, so piteous again, that he could not 
further goad her. He arose and gazed away from 
her, wondering. His glance fell upon the red volume 
on her gay desk. He read the inscription “Diary” 
stamped in gold on the cover and he picked up the 
book. 

“This is yours?” he asked, turning to her. 

“Yes, father Herrick.” 

“What is in it?” 

“Why,” she said, “what I do every day.” 

“What do you do?” 

“Why,” she said again, “why—” 

He spread the book and Fidelia gasped; he merely 
ran the pages past his thumb but he noticed how the 
fear that he was examining the book excited her. He 
held it open but he turned it upside down to himself 
and handed it to her. 

“Read to me,” he bid, “your doings for a day.” 

She took her book but she closed it. 

“Why not?” he demanded. “Are you ashamed of 
what you do?” 

“I write what I think,” Fidelia said, “besides what 
I do.” 

“Are you ashamed of what you think?” 

“It’s what I think,” she replied and she made her 
book safe by raising herself slightly and thrusting it 
under her thigh and resting her leg upon it. 


244 


FIDELIA 


So she lost the pity she had roused in him. He felt 
himself defied and he said: “Everything must be 
pleasant and easy for a man and his wife in these 
days. If God did not ordain that the giving of life 
be wholly convenient and cause no interruption in 
pleasure, so much the worse for God or at least for the 
sacred function of giving life. It must be sacrificed, 
with everything else, for pleasure. Self-gratification, 
pleasure, it is the end of all!” 

He wiped his brow with the palm of his strong thin 
hand. “I can distinctly remember, Fidelia, when I 
first read an account of a philosophy which put up the 
pursuit of pleasure as the proper aim of life and when 
I learned that considerable groups of people had lived 
who deliberately fashioned their lives on the satisfac¬ 
tion of their appetites and who considered that the 
gratification of the senses brought them the greatest 
good. ‘Pleasure is the end of all/ they said. 

“When I read that in my university days, little 
more than a generation ago, Fidelia, this part of the 
world, at least, was still serious and soberminded 
and close enough to God so that this philosophy seemed 
to me only a peculiar relic of a past paganism. But I 
have lived to see my world give itself over to the pur¬ 
suit of pleasure as the end of all and to see my son 
and his wife deny their duties to themselves and to 
God for the purpose of self-gratification.” 

“Why, father Herrick, David and I go to church!” 
Fidelia cried. 

He shook his head in despair and turned his back 
upon her. Not only had he made no effect—so he 


“PLEASURE IS THE END!” 


245 


believed—but she did not even understand what he was 
saying. 

He heard her pass behind him and enter her bed¬ 
room. When she returned, she had a parasol. “Shall 
we go down by the water, father Herrick?” she asked. 

He let her lead him out to the esplanade at the 
water’s edge where bathers hailed her and urged her 
to come in and “bring along your friend.” A canoeist 
offered them cushioned seats in his craft; and when 
Fidelia thanked him and refused, father Herrick asked 
her: “You would accept, if I were not here?” 

“Oh, probably,” Fidelia said. 

“We will both accept,” he decided and when they 
were in the canoe, he made conversation of the tran¬ 
quillity of the lake this morning in contrast to the 
fury to which it could be whipped in time of storm. 

The canoeist, who was an agreeable boy of eighteen, 
said, “You speak as if you’d been on the lake when 
it reared up, sir.” 

“He has,” Fidelia replied with pride. “He was at 
Northwestern when the students manned the coast 
guard station, day and night.” 

The boy looked over the black-suited man with more 
interest: “Have many wrecks, sir?” 

Father Herrick said: “I will never forget one 
night . . 

While he told how he had helped take off the crew 
of a ship sinking in a winter’s storm, Fidelia watched 
his eyes shine; she felt he was happy in his recollection. 
He made no personal mention of himself until he re¬ 
lated how, after the life-boat had been driven back 


246 


FIDELIA 


again and again by the waves, he prayed as he pulled 
at his oar until “God gave us strength and we reached 
the ship.” 

He told it simply, sincerely and the more thrillingly 
for that; and though Fidelia had heard the story be¬ 
fore, it made her cry and she had to clasp his hand. 
She thought: “That’s how he spent his spare time 
when he was in college, working on the coast guard 
crew. He could have made more money at something 
else. But he liked that. He’s fine, really.” 

Ephraim quietly freed his hand from Fidelia’s. She 
expected this and she took no offense but she thought: 
“He is fine but hasn’t he a queer way to be happy? 
He has to see other people in trouble or doing wrong 
so he can help them. When he sees everybody per¬ 
fectly safe and just enjoying themselves, he thinks it 
terrible.” 

She would have enjoyed just floating in the calm 
sunlight; but she knew he would not so she kept the 
boy paddling, or she paddled, sending the canoe some¬ 
where until it was time to take father Herrick to her 
table in the pleasantest corner of the big dining-room 
of the hotel. For when he had telephoned from the 
city, she had invited him to lunch and since he had 
then accepted, she knew he would stay. 

Fidelia delighted in the gay, brightly decorated room 
almost over the water’s edge. Nothing unusual was 
going on when they entered. It simply was the one 
o’clock hour when wives who had been bathing and 
drying their hair or canoeing during the morning, or 
who had been lying late abed, were descending to the 
wide, cool, beautiful room, open to the lake breezes, 


“PLEASURE IS THE END!” 


247 


shaded from the sun, where white linen and silver and 
crystal and soft but gay colors offered a bower of ease 
and pleasantness for the midday meal. Men serv¬ 
ants—mulattos—pulled out pretty chairs with the 
pleasing obsequiousness and the graceful flourish of 
negroes; they passed noiselessly and undulatingly to 
and fro bearing trays displaying extravagant, iced 
melons and elaborately chilled creations sparkling with 
the glitter of ice and the bright hues of ripe fruits; they 
bore decorative platters of cold meats and fowl, can¬ 
apes, salmis and many covered dishes and, anomalous 
beside the glasses and bowls heaped with crushed ice, 
were flaming and steaming chafing dishes presented 
to deliver one viand boiling hot immediately after an¬ 
other icy cold. 

All this thrilled Fidelia; she never got used to it. 
The many extravagant delicacies, brought from far 
and near, made her think of the feasts which, in the old 
days, only a Roman emperor or a great pro-consul 
could order—“flamingo tongues, roast and chilled 
mushrooms, locusts in honey, fish, meat and fruits.” 
Here, for her choice, was much more than all of those. 

At her appearance, the head waiter hurried up and 
she said in her pleasant way: “Albert, this is my 
husband’s father. Tell us what’s especially nice 
to-day.” 

As she sat down, many people spoke to her from 
surrounding tables or waved to her and she replied 
and waved: almost everybody looked at her and those 
who did not were told to, by their companions. 

She started to order for father Herrick the especially 
nice dishes which Albert recommended but Ephraim 


248 FIDELIA 

stopped her. He ordered sandwiches and a glass of 
milk. 

He had never felt so beaten by Fidelia as this morn¬ 
ing; he believed that he had never said so much to any 
one with so little effect. He thought, “And now she 
believes that if I let her waste money on expensive food 
for me, we’d finish with a good time.” 

Glancing about, he saw a little boy at one table, 
a little girl at another; further on, two children sat 
together. Fidelia knew that these children were not 
related but that one had been left by his mother in 
charge of the mother of the other. Father Herrick 
did not suspect this and his glance rested upon that 
table with less disapproval than when he looked 
elsewhere. 

The cry of Isaiah was echoing in his head. 

“Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye 
careless daughters. Many days and years shall ye be 
troubled. 

“Tremble, ye women that are at ease. Upon the land 
of my people shall come thorns and briars; yea, upon all 
the houses of joy in the joyous city.” 

It seemed to Ephraim Herrick, as he slowly ate his 
sandwiches and drank the milk, that he scarcely could 
sit silent here at this table in the accustomed place of 
his son; it seemed that he could not again go away 
having affected Fidelia not at all. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE TIE OF THE PAST 

D AVID telephoned to the hotel early in the 
afternoon and found Fidelia in her room. 
His father had left and when David asked if 
she had had a very hard morning, she replied: “What 
do you think, David? I actually got him into a canoe. 
Then we had lunch here.” Consequently, David felt 
relieved. He always was bothered when his father 
was in town and particularly when his father was call¬ 
ing upon Fidelia; he was glad this call was over with¬ 
out having hurt her unusually. 

Of course David understood her far better than did 
his father yet David had little comprehension of the 
habit of concealment of her hurts and troubles which 
Fidelia practiced. She was so affectionate and she 
showed her happiness so obviously that he supposed,, 
if she felt unhappy, she must show that too. But he 
did not realize the effect upon Fidelia of having been 
cast upon her own very early in life. At seven when 
she was sent away to school, already she had learned to 
keep her griefs to herself and her long lack of home, 
her continuous attendance at schools had fixed her 
habit. 

Her diary became her outlet. When she was only 
ten she had learned that if she wrote out a trouble she 
lost the pressure of the feeling that she had to tell it. 
David never suspected this use for her diary; he 

249 


250 


FIDELIA 


looked upon it as her personal record of the past and 
sometimes he wished that she would want him to read 
it; sometimes he felt more content not to know. For 
she had cut herself off from her past prior to her ap¬ 
pearance in Evanston, with a completeness which be¬ 
came more and more disquieting to David as the years 
went on. 

She wrote regularly to, and as regularly heard from, 
Mr. Jessop in the bank at White Falls; occasionally, 
in the large envelopes which contained her income 
checks and the periodical statements of the condition 
of her affairs, there seemed to be other enclosures but 
nothing to indicate even a haphazard correspondence 
with friends. She never mentioned to David anybody 
whom she had known before, except Mr. and Mrs. 
Jessop, her aunt Minna and Bolton, and of him, David 
knew no more than he had learned three years ago. 
Fidelia had loved him once and had had a dangerous 
adventure with him; then she had sent him away; he 
was dead. 

David wondered often upon what days in the year 
the events with Bolton had occurred; he wondered 
what anniversaries ran in Fidelia’s mind, as there ran 
in his the yearly return of May second, the day upon 
which Alice and he had become engaged. Then there 
was Alice’s birthday, which was October tenth. The 
approach of that day still set him planning; he felt 
himself vaguely avoiding engagements on October 
tenth and, when the day came, he felt queerly guilty. 

The occasions of his father’s visits, though they 
were not made upon fixed dates, also had the effects of 
summoning Alice to David’s mind. For he had had 


THE TIE OF THE PAST 


251 


Alice in his arms, not Fidelia, when he had declared 
his original defiance of Eternity and spoken his denial 
of his father’s God by the graveyard. For Alice, not 
for Fidelia, had he borrowed the ten thousand dollars. 
He was following, in business at least, the plan which 
Alice and he had made together and it was succeeding 
as they together had hoped. 

For Snelgrove-Herrick were prospering. The ma¬ 
hogany furnished office in which David awaited his 
father, was his own. Upon his desk, between his tele¬ 
phone and his bronze clock, were five little ivory- 
topped buttons. Press button one and his stenogra¬ 
pher appeared; button two brought instant response 
from the manager of the used car department; button 
three rang the foreman of the service shop; buttons 
four and five had no functions yet but they would 
be assigned to the task of summoning others from 
additional office space soon to be required by Snelgrove- 
Herrick. 

The painted announcement over the entrance door, 
proclaiming that Snelgrove-Herrick had the biggest in¬ 
crease in sales in the price-class of the Hamilton car, 
was literally true. Three times in three years the 
agency had doubled its business. 

The sales amply justified the wide front of plate- 
glass window display facing the boulevard and neces¬ 
sitated the service shop and the used car department. 
Whether or not they warranted the present scale of 
Snelgrove’s entertainings and his largess to his down- 
and-out friends, might be a matter of doubt; but David 
never needed to overdraw at the office to meet, on 
Monday morning, the weekly hotel account for Fidelia 


252 


FIDELIA 


and himself; and promptly and without embarrass¬ 
ment he sent his remittances to his mother at Itanaca. 

To be sure, he had not yet returned to Mr. Fuller 
the ten thousand dollars which, on that night when 
he had held Alice in his arms, he had listed as the 
first debt to be paid; but Mr. Fuller was still as satis¬ 
fied as he had been when David reported on this matter 
to Alice long ago. Indeed, Mr. Fuller had willingly 
increased his investment in the agency to enable it to 
have the capital to take care of its growing business. 
So David now owed to him twenty-five thousand 
dollars. 

To secure this debt, David had insured his life for 
the same amount in favor of Mr. Fuller and when 
Ephraim Herrick was told of it, he called it the pledg¬ 
ing of his son’s body to Mr. Fuller after David had 
sold his soul. It was, of course, only an ordinary 
business procedure and his father’s description of it 
offended David; it hurt David, too, when he took no 
pride in David’s success. For, deny it as he might, 
David wanted his father’s “well done” more than the 
praise of any one else. 

“But I’ve got to do it in business. I’ll make him 
see it,” David swore to himself. He wondered this 
afternoon, while he waited for his father, what it meant 
that Fidelia had got his father out in a canoe. Was it 
possible that his father was relenting, even a little? 

When his father came into the office, David knew at 
once there had been no relenting; his father was tired 
and silent. He denied being tired. 

“I’ve just been walking a little,” he said. “I came 


THE TIE OF THE PAST 253 

from the hotel by the elevated and I got off a mile 
or so away to walk down and consider.” 

“Consider what?” 

“I must consult with mother; before I take the next 
step, I must consult with her.” 

David felt the threat and he paled; then he said: 
“I don’t care what step you take about me. No; that’s 
not true. Of course I care but I mean it doesn’t make 
any difference what you do to me. I can take care of 
myself. But don’t hurt Fidelia, father! She doesn’t 
deserve it.” 

He stopped and his father remained silent so David 
went on: “She wasn’t brought up by ideas like ours; 
she wasn’t brought up with any ideas at all except what 
a girl could pick up for herself from a bank and from 
schools. I didn’t ask her about any ideas when I 
married her. I just asked her to marry me and she did* 
She’s my wife and I won’t have you hurt her. 

“You can say I am not living up to myself, if you 
think that way; but you can’t say she isn’t. She’s 
herself; she’s just herself; that’s what she is and you 
shan’t hurt her.” 

Still his father made no reply; he sat down and took 
off his hat and yet said nothing until, after a few min¬ 
utes, he arose to start for the station. 

“I’ll drive you,” David said and he did; and he 
went out with his father to the trainshed and a dusty 
day-coach for Itanaca. 

They passed the parlor car with its clean, white 
covers over the comfortable chairs, where the electric 
fans were spinning; David passed the car without idea 


254 


FIDELIA 


of suggesting entering it. Following his father, the 
smell of the old, sooty day-coaches assailed David and 
restored to him the sensations of long ago with his fa¬ 
ther, particularly of the time when he stepped upon a 
car platform on the hot, September day when he first 
set out from Itanaca on his way to Northwestern. 

His father turned on the platform, and David 
reached a hand after him—David gulped; he could 
not help it. Pride in him and hope, high aspirations 
for him then had burned in his father’s eyes and 
thrilled in the grasp of his father’s fingers; now was 
disappointment, disillusion. 

a Good-by, father,” David said. “I’m sorry I spoke 
so; but—I meant it.” 

“Good-by, boy,” his father said. 

David did not wait for the train to go out but, 
when he passed the fruit stand, he bought the biggest 
basket there and he ran back and thrust it in the open 
window beside his father. “For mother,” he cried, 
as the train started. “Make her take care of herself.” 

He stood watching the train till it was out of sight; 
and then, from the assertion of old habit, barely think¬ 
ing what he was doing, he entered a telephone booth in 
the station. So far as he thought, he meant to call 
Fidelia ; but it happened to be the hour at which, long 
ago, he had never failed to telephone to Alice and 
after he had spoken a number, he did not realize what 
he had done, even after the call was answered. 

A voice said: “Yes.” 

Since the switchboard girl at the hotel usually an¬ 
swered differently, he asked: “Who is this, please?” 

The voice said: “Is it David?” 


THE TIE OF THE PAST 


255 


He replied, “Yes,” and he knew what he had done. 

She said: “I’m Alice.” 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I called you.” And he could 
not leave it at that; he could not cut off. He had to 
say something and he had no choice but to go on. 
“Father was just here. I just saw him off. I—I 
called your number, Alice.” 

She said: “I see. Of course I see. You meant 
to call Fidelia.” And quietly, not sharply at all, she 
cut off. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE THREAT OF THE FUTURE 

H E stood in the hot, stuffy booth and was 
wrenched by what he had done. To do this 
to Alice, after the rest! He wanted to go to 
her; he was shaken by a need to comfort her, such as 
had seized him so inconsistently on that night he left 
her to go out on the ice for Fidelia. Many times, 
when he thought of Alice, he had had pangs of this 
need but never with such sharpness as now when it 
was doubled by the need within him to check up the 
account to tally the total of his days which had passed 
since he had made the decision, against his father, with 
Alice. 

He could not tally them over with Fidelia; she had 
not shared with him the making of the decision; she 
had come in only afterwards; she had never known 
the David Herrick who had followed the ideas of his 
father and, above all, she had no need to make a tally 
at all. But Alice had; she and he could go over every¬ 
thing together with complete understanding of all that 
was involved. 

Arriving at the hotel, at his home, Fidelia met him 
with the announcement that the Vredicks had asked 
them to a supper-sail. The Vredick’s sloop, the /’ll 
Show You y lay with canvas flapping near the hotel; a 
bit of a breeze was blowing. 

“Can’t we get out of the party?” David asked. 

256 


THE THREAT OF THE FUTURE 257 

“Why, I’ve accepted/’ Fidelia said, “but I’ll tell 
George we can’t go.” 

“Do you mind?” 

“Of course I don’t,” she said with ready compliance 
as she always acceded when she gave up what she ex¬ 
pected to do. She went up with him to their room 
and, as soon as the door was closed, she was in his 
arms, offering her warm lips. He kissed her lips and 
said, “You had rather a bad time with father this 
morning, I guess.” 

“Oh! ” she said. “Oh! ” 

“I’m sorry, Fidel, I know he went for you. I told 
him it was none of his affair how we live. It’s not; 
it’s just yours and mine.” And he kissed her again, 
fiercely. 

“David!” she said. 

“What?” 

“Kiss me again like that. You haven’t for so long! ” 

He kissed her again but it was not like that and he 
knew it; the fierceness of the other was from the fury 
of his defense of her against his father. Of course 
Fidelia felt it was not like the other. She freed her¬ 
self, but a few moments later, when he had thrown 
himself down on his bed and was staring at the ceiling, 
she knelt beside him, touching his cheek with her 
caressing fingers. 

“David, do you think so much about a baby?” she 
whispered. 

He sat up. “So he had the nerve to go after you 
about that!” 

“Do you want a baby so much, David?” she asked. 

“Not if you don’t, I’ve told you. That’s your 


258 


FIDELIA 


affair, if anything is.” He reached for her as he saw 
her trembling. “Don’t you let him bother you, Fidel.” 

She said, hiding her face: “That’s nice.” 

“What?” 

“When you call me Fidel.” 

“I always will, then.” 

She shook her head. “You don’t so much, David.” 
She got up from her knees. “I’ll call Gertrude and 
tell her we won’t go sailing. What shall we do 
to-night?” 

That was it; what, better than sailing with the Vred- 
icks, should she and he do to-night or any other night? 
A voice came cross his conscience: “I’m Alice.” Al¬ 
ways when he had happened to see Alice, or even when 
any round-about word of her reached him, he had told 
Fidelia; but he could not tell her how he had called 
Alice an hour ago. For he could not tell his wife it 
was merely a stupid accident; it had not been that; it 
had been wish for Alice then. 

He said: “Don’t call Gertrude; we’ll go, Fidel.” 

So they had supper on the smooth deck of the I’ll 
Show You which was scarcely tilted by the breeze as 
it sailed out into the lake; they had punch and iced 
champagne because George Vredick, who was a broker 
in unlisted stocks, wanted to celebrate a great killing 
he had made in rubber that day. 

David drank a little, decidedly less than the other 
men; Fidelia merely sipped her champagne. After 
supper, the four men of the party smoked and two of 
the girls did. Fidelia was one of the two who did not 
for she cared little for smoking and David preferred 
her not to smoke. They all sang, rousingly: 


THE THREAT OF THE FUTURE 259 

“Oh, a capital ship for an ocean trip 
Was the walloping window-blind; 

No wind that blew dismayed her crew 
Nor troubled the captain’s mind. . . 

They sang, “The Little Grey Home in the West” 
and “It’s a Long, long Way to Tipperary.” 

These they sang more solemnly; for voices of young 
men were singing these in England, which was at war, 
and behind the battle line where trench faced trench 
from the Belgian shore to the Swiss frontier. 

The afternoon papers on the cabin table of the I’ll 
Show You proclaimed the Russian evacuation of Vilna, 
the German advance on Brest-Litovsk. The British 
were landing at Sulva Bay, Gallipoli, and the sub¬ 
marines were continuing their toll. For three months 
the Lusitania had been under the waves off Kinsale 
Head; the first rage had lulled. To-day’s sinking of 
the White Star liner Arabic seemed almost an expected 
event. 

George Vredick pronounced upon the war, import¬ 
antly, since he sold stock and felt himself on the inside 
on Wall Street. He did some figuring on paper to 
prove that no matter how the military situation looked, 
the financiers would call a halt within two months. 
He said that “Washington” knew it and that was why 
Wilson watched and wrote notes and waited. 

David did not entirely believe this yet it served to 
lessen the pang of ignobility which he felt at being 
safe far away from the trenches where the English, the 
French and the Canadians stood. He knew several 
men who were in Canadian regiments; some of his 
classmates were in France; but they were not married 




260 


FIDELIA 


and they had not been involved in businesses of their 
own so that they owed, personally, twenty-five thou¬ 
sand dollars. 

That life insurance policy, taken to protect Mr. 
Fuller from loss, would not be paid if David fell in 
war, for the war risk was specifically excepted. And 
so, to the extent that David’s debt confined his choice 
of conduct, it was true that Mr. Fuller owned his 
body and soul. 

Of course Fidelia had money of her own which 
might have freed him; she had more than twice twenty- 
five thousand dollars in Mr. Jessop’s care and, if David 
were killed, she might meet his obligation. But David 
could not suggest this to her. He had said to her 
once: “If I went and was killed, or put out of busi¬ 
ness, father would pack my debt to Fuller. I don’t 
know how he’d pay it; but he’d try—he and mother. 
I can’t think of that.” 

“No,” said Fidelia. “You certainly can’t.” If she 
had said, “If you don’t come back, I’ll pay Mr. Fuller,” 
David would have had no choice but to go. 

He thought of this as he sat beside her in the dark 
of the deck and her warm hand softly caressed his. 
He thought: “If she’d said that, she’d feel she was 
sending me away. She wouldn’t do that.” 

They went in swimming from the boat and late in 
the evening the Vll Show You skimmed back toward the 
hotel, sailing so close to the shore that individual lights 
became discernible. 

There was Alice’s home; there, indeed, was Alice’s 
window alight. While David watched it, the light 
went out and he thought of Alice there. 


THE THREAT OF THE FUTURE 261 

His mind went to her bonfire; her useless bonfire, 
which she had burnt on the shore the night Fidelia and 
he were adrift on the ice. They had been just about 
here on the lake. As he recalled the callousness with 
which he had watched that fire, it became incredible 
to him how he had cast off the dear, confiding friend 
with whom he could talk things out as with no one else. 

He thought: “If I’d married her, and was in the 
same fix with Mr. Fuller, she’d say, “I’ll see to the 
debts, if anything happens. You must be free to do 
what you feel right!” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


HOW FATHER HERRICK STRUCK 

E PHRAIM HERRICK wasted no time in taking 
his next step, which was a refusal to accept, di¬ 
rectly or indirectly, any further aid from David. 
Ephraim first consulted with his wife and, for her sake, 
he was reluctant to resort to this method of striking at 
his son for he was well aware that the chief burden, 
which must become heavier from their decision, must 
be borne by his wife. 

For this reason, Sarah Herrick was prevented from 
protesting. Her husband asked her a difficult thing 
for the sake of their son’s soul and she had to agree 
to it. 

Ephraim planned to make his action as stinging as 
possible by waiting until David forwarded his next 
check when Ephraim meant to return it; but David’s 
mother intervened and, trying to take some of the 
sting from this hard decision, she wrote to David not 
to send the money. 

Her gentle letter, written after much evident labor 
to make her words bear her love, affected David as no 
words from his father could. 

“The time has come for me, my son, when with my 
heart full for you,” she began. 

The letter arrived in the morning mail, which was 
brought to David’s and Fidelia’s rooms while they were 
breakfasting. David had realized, ever since the days 
262 


HOW FATHER HERRICK STRUCK 263 

when he talked over his father with Alice, that his 
; father had this weapon in his hands; yet the stroke 
from it when dealt, was heavier than he dreamed it 
could be. 

“Why, David!” Fidelia cried in alarm arid hurried 
around the table to him. “What’s happened at 
| home?” 

He had no choice but to tell her and she set at once 
to comforting him. It hurt her, too; oh, he knew 
■ that; but he had no idea how piteously she was hurt. 

He required several days to determine what to do 
and finally he sent his usual check to the bank at 
Itanaca with orders to open a special account to his 
mother’s order and he wrote his mother telling her 
what he had done and saying that, whether or not she 
used the money, he would continue to deposit it for 
her. 

Fidelia took even longer to fix upon her action. She 
thought it over entirely alone, except for her diary, 
and she acted without telling David anything about it. 
She recorded her final decision on her diary page for 
the second of September. 

“It is the only thing for me to do. It will finish 
everything for me or make everything right forever. 

I think I want to do it. I’ve got to now, anyway.” 

Thereupon she descended to the hotel store-room 
where was her strong trunk, with the excellent lock, 
which defended the volumes of the record of Fidelia 
Netley, what she had done and what she had thought 
about her doings, since she was ten years old. 

From the pile of books, she abstracted that volume 
with charred covers which twice she had thrown into 





264 


FIDELIA 


the fire and, after locking up the others, she wrapped 
this and carried it up to her room, where she bolted 
the door. 

Here she reread those pages dated at Lakoon, Idaho, 
and in the valley near there. During her reading, she 
had to stop several times for the rush of sensations 
which shortened her breath and caused her to flush 
and perspire. Twice she shut the book and faltered 
over her decision; but she finished and took an en¬ 
velope and wrote, “Mrs. Hartley Bolton, Menton, Ore¬ 
gon.” She stamped the envelope and she set herself 
to compose the enclosure. 

Several times she tore up sheets half written but she 
always went at her letter again until she completed a 
page which she enclosed in the envelope. 

She mailed it in the letter drop on her floor; then she 
carried down the diary with the burnt covers and re¬ 
placed it in her trunk. She carried also the torn 
sheets upon which she had written the unsatisfactory 
drafts and, taking these to the furnace which heated 
water for the hotel, she thrust them into the fire. 


CHAPTER XXIV 

SATURN AGAIN IN THE SKY 

O F course Alice had no knowledge of any of this. 
To her, the fourth year of the marriage of 
David and Fidelia appeared to proceed as had 
the others; and to Alice, this year brought little change. 
What there was seemed to be for the better. Her 
friends said: “Alice grows lovelier every year and 
her tragic experience with that boy whom she did every¬ 
thing for, has only brought out the real quality of her 
character.” 

She was becoming lovelier with the fresh, young ma¬ 
turity of her twenty-five years. She was as slender as 
when she was in college; oh, she looked to her figure! 
She was slight in the waist, her limbs were smooth and 
light but little changes came, all to make her more at¬ 
tractive. Her neck rounded beautifully and her bosom 
was fuller. She walked a great deal and swam in 
summer and in winter exercised under the direction of 
a dancer. 

When people praised her beauty of character, she 
frequently wondered what they would say if they knew 
what feelings sometimes lay under her calmness, what 
instincts seized her, what passions played in her dreams. 
Alice came to understand perfectly how a woman, who 
has been robbed of her love by another, may do wild, 
desperate things. 

Once to have been loved by the boy you loved and 
26s 



266 


FIDELIA 


then to see another girl take him from you! Once to 
have felt the kisses of love, the embrace of his arms, his 
warmth, his stir, his wish for you above all others in 
the world; to long for him and to feel his longing to 
mate with you, to give yourself and receive him in re¬ 
turn; to form no plan, to know no hope or dream apart 
from him! Then to have it all torn from you, never 
to feel again his lips on yours, his arms about you but 
to know he is gone to another, giving all to her, leaving 
you unwanted and useless. 

Her feeling of uselessness was something which she 
had not foreseen, when she lost David; it was some¬ 
thing beyond her expected loneliness and hurt. It was 
a nullifying of her own nature which was to bear 
children; it was a forbidding of her very body to per¬ 
form its natural purpose. It was almost incredible 
that Fidelia could have robbed her of so much. 

If Alice had been able to foresee this, she never 
would have let David go so easily, she thought. It 
became amazing to her that she had not made more 
struggle. She did not know how she might have held 
him but she accused herself for not having done more, 
more. She thought of herself as having been unable 
to believe that Fidelia could so quickly destroy all that 
had grown between David and herself through three 
and a half years. Now Alice denied that Fidelia had 
destroyed it; certainly Fidelia had not destroyed it in 
Alice; and what lived in her must live, a little, in David, 
too; and if it lived, it must have power again to grow 
in him. 

But suppose Fidelia bore David children! Alice 
hardly could let herself think of that; yet it had to 


SATURN AGAIN IN THE SKY 


267 


enter every reckoning. “Is Fidelia bearing a child? ,, 
was what she meant when she asked David, “How is 
Fidelia?” at the time she first met him after his mar¬ 
riage; it was what stirred her whenever she caught 
sight of David or Fidelia later and whenever any one 
spoke to her of them. Now a child must end every 
hope for Alice; but the months and the years, three 
of them, were gone and Fidelia remained childless; and 
this—so Alice began to believe could not be from 
choice. She became certain that Fidelia, in spite of 
her splendid body, was barren. 

So Alice had her moments of feeling triumph over 
Fidelia; Alice had complete faith that she, though 
weaker than Fidelia, could bear. Never had she 
doubted that; nor had David. How confidently had 
David and she made their plans together on the cer¬ 
tainty of children! She thought of him as having 
transferred her plan and his to Fidelia and himself 
and she was sure that he must, therefore, be disap¬ 
pointed. She thought of talks which he and she had 
together, when he was in his moods of self-reproach 
and examination, and she thought, “He must miss 
me, sometimes.” 

That telephone call, when he rang her number 
from the railroad station, proved to her that he did. 
Of course she knew that he had not intentionally 
called her, but instinctively he had! What had he 
told her? “Father was just here.” That meant he 
was having trouble with his father again; probably 
it was more serious trouble than usual and, in his 
trouble, he had needed her. 

It was a small incident to build upon but it be- 


268 


FIDELIA 


came much to her who lived within a mile of David 
and who yet was cut off for months at a time from 
even a chance glimpse of him in a car or upon the 
street and who seldom met any one who knew him. 
For Alice had been avoiding the university and the 
university people who lived near, although she kept 
up correspondence with girls who lived out of town 
and especially with Myra, who was at her home in 
Rock Island. 

Through Myra, she heard about Lan, who had 
finished his medical course and was an interne in a 
hospital in Baltimore; but Lan knew nothing about 
David in these days and, conversely, it was probable 
that David knew nothing about Lan, not even that 
Myra and Lan at last were to be married, next 
month. The letter from Myra, which told Alice the 
day, recalled almost unbearably the plan which the 
four of them—David and Lan, and Myra and she— 
had made long ago when David and she would first 
have Lan and Myra for best man and maid of honor 
and then David would be Lan’s best man and she, 
Myra’s matron of honor. 

The letter came in the week when college was 
opening again and when the “active” Tau Gamma 
chapter—the girls in college—were telephoning to Alice 
to please come up and help “rush”; for with the start 
of the new term and the appearance of a new class on 
the campus, every fraternity and every sorority was in 
combat against each other to pledge to itself the best 
of the freshman girls or boys. 

This combat was so keen and so serious that it en- 


SATURN AGAIN IN THE SKY 


269 


listed not only the active members of each chapter but 
it called upon the popular alumnae, too. Tau Gamma 
always had appealed to Alice for help and for three 
years she had excused herself; but now she promised 
to “come up” for she determined to cease avoiding the 
campus where, in September of happier years, David 
used to meet her. 

So she drove again to the edge of the shaded road up 
to the old University; she walked under the arch 
of trees with the leaves turning brown and fluttering 
down as they used to do when they marked for her the 
beginning of another long, delightful epoch of close 
companionship with David in this pleasant, set-apart 
world of the university. She went through the fa¬ 
miliar halls and to chapel; she returned to Willard 
Hall, filled with girls, mostly strange, yet all very like 
girls she used to know. She went past the frater¬ 
nity houses and the boarding-houses; here was the 
Delta Alpha house just as it used to be. 

She gazed up at it, seeking a glimpse of the window 
which had been David’s. Boys were all about and 
men of the younger alumni. David might be there but 
Alice did not see him, though she recognized a couple 
of men of her time. Here was Mrs. Fansler’s, filled 
with girls again. Mrs. Fansler’s house had been 
newly painted, it looked fresher and more cheerful. 
A girl had just come to Mrs. Fansler’s whom Tau 
Gamma wanted to know; and Alice had agreed to go 
with one of the active Tau Gammas to call on this girl, 
for neither of them had the slightest idea that Fidelia 
would be at Mrs. Fansler’s to-day. No one knew that 




270 


FIDELIA 


Fidelia had come up to college for the Tau Gammas 
never called on her for help; but there she was in the 
parlor with Mrs. Fansler. 

It was Alice’s first meeting with Fidelia in a room 
since they went from their last class-room in college; 
it was the first encounter in which she could not nod 
and merely give a glance and pass on. Alice and her 
companion came in upon Fidelia and Mrs. Fansler, 
seated. Immediately Mrs. Fansler got up and was 
flustered; Fidelia arose but she was not flustered. She 
said: “Why, Alice!” and she offered Alice her hands. 

Alice did not take them. Whether or not she should 
touch Fidelia’s offered hand, Alice hardly considered; 
for she could not. The old seizure of her helplessness 
before Fidelia—that helplessness which started with 
her fear when she first saw Fidelia on the evening of her 
arrival in Myra’s room, which was doubled on the first 
morning in class when she saw Fidelia sitting in the 
sun and which overwhelmed her finally at the Tau 
Gamma dance—that possessed Alice again. 

“How do you do, Fidelia?” she said; then she spoke 
to Mrs. Fansler and, becoming aware that Mrs. Fansler 
was urging her to sit down, she did so. Mrs. Fansler 
introduced Fidelia and the undergraduate girl with 
Alice. “Mrs. Herrick,” Mrs. Fansler said. 

Alice saw the girl stare in admiration at Fidelia; and 
no wonder; for Fidelia was the same as ever. Gone 
from Alice was her poor triumph over Fidelia because 
she had no child; gone from Alice was her comfort 
from that telephone call and her built-up belief that 
David needed her. 

Fidelia asked: “You’re helping rush ? ’ ’ 


SATURN AGAIN IN THE SKY 


271 


“Yes,” Alice answered. 

“There’s a fine class entering, I think,” said Fidelia. 

“Some very desirable girls,” agreed Mrs. Fansler, 
emphatically. 

Alice said, not half thinking of the effect: “You 
remember Myra Taine, Mrs. Fansler?” 

“Certainly I do.” 

“She’s being married next month,” Alice said and 
looked at Fidelia; and she knew that Fidelia did not 
know about Myra and Lan. Immediately Fidelia con¬ 
fessed it. “To Lan Blake?” she asked. 

“Lan,” said Alice and no longer could look at Fidelia, 
“He’s in Baltimore now, interne at a hospital where his 
uncle operates, Mrs. Fansler. He’s going to Serbia 
with a Medical unit from Baltimore, as soon as it is 
organized. But Myra and he’ll be married first.” 

“I’m glad of that,” said Fidelia; then she kissed Mrs. 
Fansler; she spoke to the girl whom she had just met; 
then added to Alice, “David will be glad to know that. 
I’ll tell him.” And, in a moment, she went. 

Fidelia journeyed to Chicago feeling a reluctance to 
tell David which Alice never suspected; for knowing 
nothing of the step which David’s father recently had 
taken, Alice had no idea of the effect which the report 
about Lan would have upon David; but Fidelia knew 
what to expect. 

She had an errand in the city which was not at 
David’s office or in the stores or at a tea room or theater 
or any other place of usual resort. She went directly 
from the train to the post office where she inquired at 
the general delivery window for mail for Fidelia Netley. 
There was nothing for her, though there ought to be; 



272 


FIDELIA 


for there had been plenty of time for Fidelia’s letter 
to Mrs. Hartley Bolton to reach Menton, Oregon, and 
for a reply to reach Chicago. 

On this day, as upon others when she inquired for a 
letter and received none, Fidelia felt relieved, at first; 
but the relief did not last. She went to a film theater 
for the rest of the afternoon, leaving in time to be sure 
to be at the hotel when David got in. 

He and she were alone while dressing before dinner 
and after dinner they were alone again but it was not 
until late, when they had returned to their suite and 
were preparing for bed that Fidelia said: “I didn’t 
tell you, I was in Evanston to-day. I was at the 
college, David.” 

“You were? That’s good.” 

“Yes,” said Fidelia. “Rushing’s started. Tau 
Gamma is after a lot of girls.” 

“Were you,” asked David and stopped, “were you 
helping Tau Gamma rush?” 

“No; they don’t ask me,” Fidelia replied. “I was 
up seeing Mrs. Fansler. She often phones me, you 
know; she’s just had her house done over, inside and 
out; she wanted me to see it.” 

“Yes,” said David and waited, sure that something 
else was coming. 

“It’s gray and green outside now. It looks awfully 
much better.” 

“Yes.” 

“The woodwork’s white now. I saw Alice there, 
David. She was rushing for Tau Gamma; there’s a 
girl at Mrs. Fansler’s they want.” 

“Yes,” said David again with pulses hastening. 


273 


SATURN AGAIN IN THE SKY 

“Alice told me about Myra and Lan.” 

“What?” asked David, his pulse suddenly halting. 
| “You mean they’ve married! ” And he might have said 
aloud, “And I didn’t know.” 

“No; they’re just going to. Lan’s an interne in a 
hospital in Baltimore where his uncle is. He’s going— 
Lan, I mean, David—to Serbia with a Baltimore med¬ 
ical unit; but he’s going to marry Myra, first. I told 
Alice I’d tell you.” 

“You mean she asked you to?” 

“No; but I told her I would.” 

“Alice,” said David, “she’d just heard?” 

“No; I don’t think so.” 

Fidelia continued undressing but David did not; he 
went from the bedroom into the living room and when 
he returned, after a couple of minutes, it was to put 
on the collar and tie and coat which he had taken off. 

“I’m going out for a walk, Fidel,” he said. 

She offered in her willing way: “Shall I dress and 
go with you?” 

He said: “You’re ready for bed.” 

“Yes,” she accepted his refusal without offense. She 
came to him and touched his cheek with her palm. 
“You care a lot about Lan, don’t you, dear?” 

David cried) “I roomed with that fellow for four 
years! He’s the fairest, squarest little fellow—” He 
broke off. He jerked away from Fidelia’s hand but he 
seized her hand before she could lower it and he kissed 
it. “Don’t you mind for me, Fidel!” 

Fidelia got into bed after David went out but she had 
no idea of seeking sleep. She thought of David and of 
his mother, who was so thin and not so strong this 




274 


FIDELIA 


year yet who was getting along, Heaven knew how, 
without David’s money. Fidelia thought of her warm, 
friendly gray eyes and her sweet smile and her very 
thin and very worn hands and she thought of David’s 
money deposited for her but lying, untouched, in the 
bank. And Fidelia thought also of Lan, the plain, 
square, likable boy who was the first person she had 
met on coming to Northwestern; she had always liked 
Lan and at first he had liked her. But now, because 
of her, he had hurt David. 

Of course the hurt, itself, would not have been so 
sharp but it flicked upon the raw of the hurt before. 

When David came in, she lay without moving; and 
he did not disturb her. Long after he was in bed, and 
after he had ceased to shift about and turn, Fidelia lay 
awake. 

A star was bright in the square of sky which she 
could see through the open window; it was near to the 
course of the moon and strange to the constellation in 
which it shone to-night. Fidelia knew therefore that it 
was a planet; she marked it well in her mind and the 
next day she inquired what planet it was and she 
learned, as she expected, that it was Saturn, again, the 
wandering star of misfortune which had ruled the sky 
on the night David and she were adrift on the floe. 


CHAPTER XXV 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 

M YRA wired to Alice, at the end of that week, 
“He wants a regular wedding so I’m coming 
to Chicago for clothes”; to which Alice 
immediately replied, “Come right here.” And the 
next day Myra arrived and Alice and she shut them¬ 
selves in Alice’s room for a long talk about everything. 

“Don’t your own doings beat the Dutch?” Myra 
appealed. “Here Lan and I have been passing up 
month after month since he’s been out of medical 
school and when he might just as well have been 
married; because he felt he’d be getting into the war 
before it’s over; and now we’re getting married because 
he’s about to go.” 

“You two get married!” Alice urged vehemently. 
“Don’t worry! ” Myra rejoined and longed for ability 
to take her friend into her happiness. 

As soon as she could, Myra inquired cautiously: 
“How’s Dave making it with Fidelia?” 

“Very well, I think.” 

“Do you think it?” Myra demanded. 

“Yes,” Alice replied but she thought about that tele¬ 
phone call and Myra discerned that she held a 
reservation. 

“Nothing peculiar happened yet?” Myra asked. 
“Peculiar?” Alice repeated. 

“Something peculiar is due with her; we knew that 
275 




276 


FIDELIA 


in college, Allie. Wasn’t there a secret that Roy 
Wheen knew and that our Stanford chapter was cover¬ 
ing up? There was a girl visiting in Davenport, just 
across the river from Rock Island, who was in Stan¬ 
ford when Fidelia was. She was awfully eloquent 
about a man named Bolton—he wasn’t in college but 
he was playing around ardently with her.” 

“With your friend, you mean?” 

“You know I don’t; with Fidelia. He was large 
and handsome with black hair and dark eyes. He 
was one of California’s proud native sons—a second 
or third son of somebody who owned about half of a 
California county. They run to area out there. Well, 
Sam Bolton was one who went simply wild over Fidelia. 
He used to arise at midnight on the farm—or the ranch, 
whatever it was—and ride all night over the mountains 
to steam into Palo Alto to see her. Or if he was quite 
a ways off, when he got the feeling that he couldn’t 
live except in her presence, he’d burn up the California 
highways at sixty or seventy miles an hour when every¬ 
body else was asleep. He was especially given to 
strenuous and spectacular stunts.” 

Myra halted. 

“Well?” said Alice, breathing irregularly. 

“Well, what?” 

“What did he do? I mean, did she care for him? 
Was she engaged?” 

“Oh, she was engaged to him all right.” 

“Then?” said Alice. 

“That’s it; then? Then Fidelia left college; that 
is, she didn’t come back. And neither did he. The 
next thing we know, it’s a year and a half later and 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 277 

she s come to our chapter with something she’s cover¬ 
ing up.” 

“But what was it, Myra?” 

“That’s what was asked me. No one knows. I 
wonder if Dave does.” 

Alice s bosom fluttered. Of herself, she never put 
much store by that secret of Fidelia’s but this revival 
of it excited her. 

Myra inquired, bluntly: “Fidelia has no baby yet, 
has she?” 

“No.”, 

“That seems funny to me. I thought she surely 
would, she’s so naturally animal.” 

“I thought she would,” said Alice. 

“You and Dave ever talk over the subject of 
children?” Myra demanded mercilessly. 

“Yes.” 

“You were going to have them, of course.” 

“Yes. He thought, Myra, for man and wife to live 
together except with the idea of having children was 
sin. He was brought up strictly about that, but he 
modified the idea, some.” 

“Evidently he’s modified it a good deal more. Men 
are remarkable creatures, Alice, with their ideas. 
Thank God Lan takes to normal, scientific, rationalis¬ 
tic notions. Yet he’s overtaken with sentiment some¬ 
times. Of course he is about me; I like it. He 
suddenly insisted on a real father-give-away-the- 
bride wedding with flower girls and potted palms 
everywhere. Heavens, I don’t care what I’m married 
in or where. I’d gladly go to Baltimore as I am or to 
the dock to marry him before he sails, but he wants 



278 


FIDELIA 


to come and get me at home from amid bevies of 
brides-maids and the maid-of-honor—that’s you, of 
course. And he wants a best man and who, do you 
suppose?” 

“Who?” asked Alice. 

“Dave! Can you beat it?” 

“Who?” 

“Of course, only if you agree, Alice.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“I don’t blame you. You have to remember Lan’s 
going to war; he’s got to thinking that after rooming 
four years with Dave, and getting to care more for him 
than any other man he ever knew or ever will, you can 
understand that . . 

“I can understand that,” Alice said. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that. I meant, Lan got to 
feeling he’d turned down Dave pretty hard when Dave 
never did anything to him. So when he comes through 
here, he wants to bring Dave to Rock Island with him. 
Dave alone, not Fidelia, of course. He thinks Dave 
will understand and do it—if you don’t care.” 

“I?” said Alice. “You give me that to decide?” 

Her breast, which fluttered before, almost collapsed, 
then swelled violently with the draw of her breath. 
Why not? Why not have him come where she was 
and see what power she had? 

As a result of her answer, Dave looked up from his 
desk in the forenoon two days later and saw Lan stand¬ 
ing in the door of his office. 

Dave leaped up and Lan advanced with his broad, 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 279 

square hand extended. “Hello, Dave!” he hailed, 
heartily. 

“You old burglar!” Dave cried in his delight. 
“Where have you been keeping yourself?” 

“Baltimore, but Pm on my way to Pvock Island.” 
“That means a wedding, I’ve heard.” 

“Have you, Dave?” 

“You bet I have and I’ve heard about Serbia, too; 
you’re going.” 

“Yes.” 

“When, Lan?” 

“Next week.” 

“You are!” 

They looked each other over and agreed: “You’re 
about the same.” 

Then Lan said: “Dave, I’ve been doing a lot of 
thinking about old times.” 

“So have I,” said Dave. 

“I guess this sounds like a last minute idea, Dave; 
but it isn’t. I’m going to Rock Island this afternoon; 
the wedding’s to-morrow night and what I’m here for 
is to take you along with me, Dave.” 

“You want me?” cried Dave. 

“You’ve got to stand up with me!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Be my best man the way we’ve always planned. 
I’d have written you long ago but Myra had to see 
Alice first.” 

“Alice!” said David. 

“Myra’s having her, of course. Myra’s just been 
here, at Alice’s. She’s taken Alice back with her; 




280 


FIDELIA 


they’re both at Rock Island now. It’s all right with 
Alice, Dave; Myra wired me.” 

“What’s all right?” 

“For me to bring you. So you’ll come with me, Old 
Top! You’ll stand up with me. You won’t throw me 
down now.” 

Dave looked at Lan and forgot everything else for 
the moment. Lan’s “now” meant not only now when 
he was being married, at last, but now when he was 
going away to war. Dave thought of Lan at work 
in Serbia; he pictured Lan working under fire and in 
pestilence; not with the greatest skill perhaps, but with 
no idea of sparing his short, stubborn self. Dave 
promised: “You bet I won’t throw you down.” 

“That’s good,” Lan accepted immediately. “That’s 
great! That’s settled, then. That makes everything 
all right. I’ll wire Myra. You’ll stay at her home, of 
course.” 

Then Dave remembered Fidelia and that this invi¬ 
tation could not include her; but with the thought was 
memory of the night when she had brought him word, 
from Evanston, that Lan was to be married and he had 
felt badly, and she had, because she thought that Lan, 
on account of her, meant to ignore him. He wanted 
to tell her how it really was. 

“Fjdelia’ll understand,” asserted Lan. “I’ll wire 
now.” 

“I’ll call her first,” David said; and immediately, 
with Lan there, he did so. 

Fidelia insisted that David go; she urged him to go 
on the afternoon train with Lan. “Of course you’ll 
go, David,” she said, “I’m just glad about it. You 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 281 


mustn’t think of anything else.” And she asked to 
talk to Lan over the phone. 

David kept his promise to go but he did not leave 
with Lan on the afternoon train, although Fidelia 
offered to pack his suitcase for him and bring it down¬ 
town. David did not deceive himself. His visit to 
Rock Island was to be not only a return to the com¬ 
panionship of Lan, also it was to be a return to the 
company of Alice. It must be; there could be no 
avoiding it. And he knew that Fidelia fully under¬ 
stood this. 

As there was a train in the morning which would 
take him to Rock Island in ample time for the wedding, 
he saw Lan off in the afternoon and he returned to 
the hotel at his usual hour. 

“Lan’s wedding is the only thing which could happen 
that I’ve got to be in without you,” he said to Fidelia. 
“Leaving to-morrow morning, I’ll get into Rock Island 
about noon. “I’ll be at the Taines’ to-morrow night, 
of course, but back here by noon again. Will you 
come in for lunch with me?” 

“Of course I will,” Fidelia said. “You know that I 
wish you’d gone with Lan, if you’d liked to.” 

“I didn’t want to,” David said. 

“I wish you’d stay longer in Rock Island, if you find 
you’d like to,” Fidelia urged. 

“Why would I stay?” David asked. “Lan and 
Myra of course will be gone.” 

Neither he nor she mentioned Alice, except when he 
said in confirmation of what he had told her over the 
telephone: “Alice is going to be maid-of-honor, of 
course,” and when he told Fidelia in order that she 



282 


FIDELIA 


might have no idea that Alice also would be on the 
morning train, “Alice is in Rock Island now.” 

He arose earlier than usual in the morning and he 
was awakened by unconscious currents of impatience 
nearly an hour before he arose but he did not stir 
about, as he wished not to wake Fidelia; however, she 
also was awake and she was aware that he was. 

She dressed for breakfast with him and they break¬ 
fasted, not in their room, but in the restaurant, as 
David suggested it “to save time.” As a matter of 
fact both of them felt under tension this morning when 
he was leaving her to visit Alice and they found the 
tension less when they were not alone. 

He reminded Fidelia, when he kissed her good-by: 
“To-morrow at one-thirty. We’ll have our lunch at 
the Blackstone.” 

She said: “I’ll meet your train. But remember 
you must stay later, if you’d like to.” 

When he was on the train for Rock Island, and it 
was started, he felt the tension no more; he was not 
at ease, yet he felt freshened. The direction of his 
travel drew his thoughts ahead of the train; Fidelia 
was not in that direction; ahead of them, where he was 
traveling, were Lan and Myra and Alice and he was 
going to join them; it seemed, sometimes, not only a 
journey to a meeting again of the four of them but 
almost it seemed a return in time to the world of the 
four. 

Of course, he was Fidelia’s husband but the others 
were the same—Myra and Lan now being married, as 
they long ago meant to do; and Alice was the same. 
Or, was she? 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 283 

To be the same, she must still care more about 
David Herrick than about any one else in the world; 
and did she, now? When he had last seen her, she 
had appeared to be the same as he had known her since 
he had married; but he had not seen her at all for 
several months and he went over in his mind what 
Fidelia had told him after she had talked with Alice 
at Mrs. Fansler’s; he reviewed Lan’s declaration that 
Myra had reported it “all right” with Alice to have 
David in the same wedding-party with her. 

This morning on the train he found himself inter¬ 
preting this into belief that Alice was changing and was 
ceasing to care for him. He argued that of course he 
ought to be glad of that; but he was not. The idea 
of Alice indifferent to him, disturbed him; it brought 
back tension to him. He became more impatient to 
reach Rock Island and learn whether it was so. If it 
was, very likely she had come to care about some one 
else and this was more disturbing, although it was 
exactly what he ought to hope for her. 

“I’ll know when I see her,” he assured himself but 
he did not know at once. 

Lan met him at the station and drove him to the 
Taines’ where the family and bridal party were about 
to sit down to luncheon. It was a big party and the 
house was full, so when he found Alice, she was in a 
group of girls to whom he had to be introduced. 

He could not guess how she had debated whether 
she would meet him thus or alone and how she had 
rehearsed herself to speak to him without betraying 
too much of her feeling. In the confusion of the first 
moment, when he gazed past other girls to meet Alice’s 



284 


FIDELIA 


clear, blue eyes and to reply to her calm greeting, he 
thought: “She doesn’t care.” 

She and he were not at once placed together, al¬ 
though they were maid-of-honor and best man, so 
Alice was able to keep up her pretense during the after¬ 
noon; and Myra’s manner helped her; for Myra was 
so happy that she went about beaming at David, as at 
every one else. Of course he had expected her to be 
civil to him in her own house and at her wedding, but 
he thought, if Alice still cared, Myra must show more 
reserve with him for Alice’s sake. 

It was in the evening, at the wedding, when Alice’s 
pretense failed. There she had to stand on one side 
of Myra as David stood side by side with Lan while 
Myra and Lan were being married. Here were two of 
them completing their part of the purpose of the four, 
as they had always meant to do; and when David 
looked at Alice and met her look toward him, he knew 
not only that she cared and cared for him alone and 
forever but that she cared more than before. Then 
in a moment, Lan and Myra were man and wife, and 
David and Alice, with her arm in his, were going down 
a church aisle to the measures of the Mendelssohn 
wedding march. 

At the door of the church, others came about them; 
thereafter they were constantly with others through 
the festivities and the solemnities of the long evening. 

At last Lan took Myra from her home; hand in 
hand, leaving laughter and tears behind them, the 
bride and groom ran out to their motor car and were 
driven away. 

David and Alice were with those who followed them 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 285 

to the gate but after the car drove off, Alice immedi¬ 
ately disappeared and David supposed she had gone 
with the guests who returned to the house where people 
were dancing again. David did not go in for he was 
battling with conflicting feelings. He was stirred by 
his thought of Alice as she went with him down the 
aisle of the church; he was sobered by the idea that 
his handshake of good-by to Lan was very likely to be 
the last time he might grasp that broad, square, earnest 
hand; he was roused by the disturbing contrast this 
wedding of Myra and Lan furnished to his marriage 
to Fidelia in the parlor of Dorothy Hess’s home. 

He argued that the contrast was due to this 
being a church wedding, with a large bridal party; he 
argued that, since Lan was going to war, that fact 
naturally endowed this marriage with an exalted tone 
entirely missing from his own wedding; but he could 
not down his own discomfort. No; there had been 
something noble in this night—something properly and 
inherently exalted and beautiful in Lan Blake’s 
marriage to Myra Taine which had been lacking in 
David Herrick’s to Fidelia Netley and which would 
not have been in the wedding at Streator, even if David 
then had been going to war. 

He glanced up and noticed the stars; and the sight 
of them brought him to his camp with Fidelia on the 
sand of the shore; he thought how he had looked up 
at the stars, as he lay awake with his joy on his wed¬ 
ding night and exulted: 

“Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
And then no more of Thee and Me,” 


286 


FIDELIA 


and how the idea had satisfied him that, having 
Fidelia, he had all he could want and that, after life 
with her, he would ask nothing more. But he was 
asking for more now. 

He heard some one and, looking down from the stars, 
he saw Alice in the dim light from those far-away 
galaxies of the sky. The starlight was the only light 
over the lawn. 

It was a large, wide lawn with many trees, some of 
them bare of bough on this October night, some of 
them fir and cedars which stood in great, tapering 
clumps against the stars. 

To-night this western shore of Illinois, washed by 
the silent, wide waters of the Mississippi was warmer 
than the shore of the lake. From across the river and 
up from the southwest plains a mild sirocco was blow¬ 
ing and the season seemed earlier than in Chicago. It 
was like a mild night in autumn or spring when David 
and Alice used to wander outdoors from dances at 
college. She was in white, wearing her maid-of-honor 
dress, and she had not even a scarf over her white 
shoulders. Oh, it mightily reminded him of old times 
with her. 

Alice asked, as she approached him: “You’ve 
heard their train?” 

“No,” he said. “But I haven’t been listening for 
it.” 

“She’s happy,” said Alice. “Happy as ever she 
hoped to be. Happier, I guess.” 

“He is,” said David. 

“He ought to be.” 

“Yes; he ought.” 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 287 

She was silent beside him; vaguely he could see her 
face, her hair, her neck, the round of her bosom, the 
slenderness of her waist. He used to have his arm 
about her, when they were alone in the quiet like this; 
he used to know the feel of her against him, her lips 
on his, her arm about his neck, holding him down to 
her for another kiss. 

He said: “Alice!” 

“What?” 

“How about you?” he demanded; and the outright¬ 
ness of it caught breath from her. She gasped, then 
after waiting a few seconds she said: “There’s noth¬ 
ing new about me, David.” 

“There’s got to be, Alice!” 

“What,” she said and repeated it, “what ought to 
be new for me?” 

He did not answer and she asked: “You mean I 
ought to care for somebody else? That’s it? You’d 
be happier if I could?” 

He could not say it; what he said was: “I want you 
to be happy, Alice. I want that more than anything 
else.” 

“More than anything else you’ve not already got, 
David,” she corrected him, quietly. “Maybe that’s 
true. For you’ve got almost everything you wanted, 
haven’t you? You’ve made money; you’re doing well; 
and you have Fidelia. I bother you sometimes; that’s 
all. But you shouldn’t bother about me; I don’t 
want you to. What can you do for me now, David? 
Besides, I’m all right.” 

“You’re not.” 

That stopped her short; it silenced her and seemed 






288 


FIDELIA 


to crush her breathing while she thought. At last she 
said: “Of course I’m not, David. Are you all right?” 

“What do you mean by all right?” 

“What you do, David.” 

“I’m all right,” David declared. 

“Perfectly happy?” 

“Of course.” 

“Then you’ve changed a lot!” 

This caught him up; he expected nothing like it. 
“How’ve I changed?” 

“You’re not living with her very much as you 
planned to live with me.” 

He made no reply and she proceeded. “You never 
talked about a hotel to me; and we—we were going 
to have children, David, weren’t we?” 

She made him answer “Yes.” 

“We talked over the number. We’d have four; not 
six, like your parents, but four about two years and a 
half apart. You thought that would be best for me. 
Wasn’t that it?” 

His hand brushed hers as he moved it and she drew 
hers from touch of him with whom she had talked over 
having children; and she said: 

“It’s funny how I keep thinking about your business, 
David. That ten thousand dollars we used to talk 
about—the last time I asked you about it, you hadn’t 
paid it back yet; but you have now, of course.” 

“No; I haven’t, Alice.” 

“You haven’t. Why? It’s queer for me to be 
asking, David, but that special ten thousand got to be 
a sort of debt of mine in my mind, once. You see, I 
thought, when we borrowed it—for we did in a way do 


TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 289 

that together—I’d pay it back, if something happened 
so you couldn’t. Why haven’t you paid it back, 
David?” 

“Because I’ve borrowed more. I owe Mr. Fuller 
twenty-five thousand now.” 

“You mean you aren’t doing well?” 

“I’m doing fine; I borrowed more to give me capital 
to take care of more business.” 

“Your father,” she said and he followed the way of 
her thought. Naturally with mention of Mr. Fuller 
and his ten thousand dollars, his father came to her 
mind. “How are you and your father now?” 

David replied: “How would you suppose?” 

“He’s been here—in Chicago, I mean. You told me 
so, David, that day you phoned me—by mistake.” 

“Yes; he was seeing me.” 

“I thought there was—I had to tell from your tone, 
you said almost nothing to me—maybe there was 
special trouble.” 

“There was.” 

“Much trouble?” 

“Much?” said David. “He’s stopped taking money 
from me now.” 

“He has? Why?” 

“He has, Alice; that’s all!” David said quickly and 
he waited in the dark, expecting she must ask more 
about it; but she said: “Your father used to be 
against me; you remember David? Yet now I think 
of you finishing with your father and me at the same 
time. What was the time, to you, David, which was 
the end of me with you?” 

He said: “I don’t know.” 




290 


FIDELIA 


“I do,” she replied calmly. “Whenever I go back 
over it, always it’s the night Fidelia came and you 
drove me home in the snow-storm and you stopped 
your car by the graveyard, remember?” 

“Of course I remember.” 

“And you said you weren’t going to live by your 
father’s idea, you said you were tired of Eternity; you 
wouldn’t have it any more. You thought that night 
—didn’t you—that I’d do instead of Eternity. Then 
you thought I wouldn’t but Fidelia would.” 

He realized in a moment that she was moving away. 
She did not turn but she stepped from him, saying no 
word but very evidently she meant to leave him. In 
another instant, she had turned and she was upon the 
walk to the house. He watched her while she went 
from him and her white figure became more visible as 
she approached the light upon the porch; she went up 
the steps without even looking back and entered the 
house. 

David stayed out in the dark by himself and, turned 
from the house, he gazed away toward the wide, mid¬ 
night sheen of the Mississippi. Lights glinted upon 
the river from the long bridge and a train slowly moved 
from the Illinois shore and crossed to Davenport. It 
could not be Myra’s and Lan’s train; for they were 
bound east; but it brought to David thought of them 
on their train; and he thought of Lan having to-night 
more than he had had in his camp with Fidelia on the 
Wisconsin shore; he thought of Lan starting with 
something he never had gained and this had nothing 
to do with Lan’s going away to war. 

The last of the guests were gone when David went 



TWO COMPLETE THEIR PURPOSE 291 

up to the house; Alice had disappeared to her room. 
He went up to his room and to bed almost immediately 
but he did not sleep. He was not accustomed to be 
alone with sleeplessness but to-night he lay alone in 
the silence looking up at the stars above his window 
and to-night, in his sensation, the stars drew him on 
and on into their infinite space above, into the reaches 
of Eternity which he had assumed to say made him 
tired, of which he would have no more, which could 
lay no obligations upon him. Eternity! He would 
not live for it; he would live for pleasure with Fidelia. 

He turned from the stars and gazed down at the river 
flowing on and on ceaselessly, silently, forever. He 
shut his eyes to it but still he saw the stream, and, 
more, he seemed to feel the flow of it; he felt himself 
carried off in the course of that current which became 
no mere earthly river but the ever-rolling stream of 
Time bearing all the sons of creation, one after an¬ 
other, away. 

“Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 

Bears all its sons away.” 

He felt himself struggling in the stream of Time 
washing him on into that endless Eternity which made 
him tired, which he would not have but instead of 
which he would have his wife. 

A psalm set to beating in his brain: 

“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all 
Generations. 

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou 
hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting 
thou art God.” 




292 


FIDELIA 


And the Lord God of the little boy learning his first 
chapters of Genesis, the Lord God who had a voice to 
be heard and from whose voice Adam hid when God 
walked in the Garden in the cool of the day; God who 
spoke to Moses from the burning bush; God who sent 
the Angel of Death who slew the firstborn in the land 
of Egypt; God, the I Am the Lord Thy God, Thou 
Shalt Have no Gbd Before Me; God that night assailed 
David Herrick. 

He wanted to go home. “I’m going home,” he 
decided. “I ought to go home.” By home, he meant 
not the hotel, but Itanaca. He counted with amaze¬ 
ment the months which had passed since he had seen 
his mother. “It can’t be,” he said; but it was and it 
was almost a year. He got up, and in his timetable 
looked up the hour for an early train which would 
connect with the line for Itanaca. Then he slept. 

Alice did not appear for breakfast at the hour David 
had his; so he left without again seeing her. He in¬ 
tended to telegraph from the station to Fidelia to in¬ 
form her of his change of plan but he postponed this 
till he should reach Itanaca, for at breakfast he had 
found that one of the ushers was driving in the 
direction of Itanaca and would reach the town before 
the train; so David went with him. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


DAVID STAYS AWAY 

N OT even the Scriptures can claim that good¬ 
ness and purity have power to alter human 
fate; indeed, the Bible says in plain words: 

“All things come alike to all; there is one event to the 
righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and 
to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that 
sacrificeth not.” 

Yet people persuade themselves that, for the doing 
of good, a man or a woman may obtain special dispen¬ 
sation of super-human endurance and strength. 

When David arrived at Itanaca, he realized with a 
shock, which was the more severe because of the time 
which had passed since his last visit; that he had been 
living in the delusion of a special dispensation in regard 
to his mother. 

To his father’s perceptions, to those of David’s 
sisters and brothers and to the neighbors, nothing 
markedly unusual was apparent; and David found 
his mother going about her usual duties but he saw 
alterations in her which alarmed him. 

His father admitted, “Your mother is not as well as 
I would like. I have had her see Dr. Bradford and 
he is giving her a good tonic.” Bradford was the 
local physician. 

Deborah said to David: “Mother is thinner; and 
293 



294 


FIDELIA 


she tires so easily now. I try to make her leave more to 
me; but she simply won’t, David. You know mother.” 
And Deborah, for all her habit of self-restraint, had to 
cry a little. She was very glad to have David in the 
house again; for David was the only brother near her 
age. The other brothers, Paul and John, were much 
younger. They belonged with Esther and Ruth as 
“the children.” 

David felt no inclination to tears, but was aroused 
by an insurgent emotion almost like anger. It was not 
against Deborah, and certainly it was not against his 
mother; it was not against his father, directly, but was 
against the manner of thinking and living which David 
once had described to Alice as his father’s “game of 
forever pleasing God.” 

This game had been going on as long as David could 
remember and chiefly at the cost of his mother. As he 
had told Alice, David had never known his father to 
strive for things to indulge his mother and she had 
never striven for them herself; she always had been his 
father’s faithful partner in his game of pleasing God, 
during the progress of which she had borne six chil¬ 
dren, nursed them, bathed them, made their clothes, 
taught them their first lessons, meanwhile cooking, 
washing dishes—and clothes—scrubbing, making beds, 
being wife and mother and maid-of-all work and, also, 
leader of the church auxiliaries and charitable societies 
and in the Sunday school. 

Invariably in the little white parsonage beside the 
spired wooden church, she was the first up in the morn¬ 
ing; rarely indeed was any one later to bed than she. 
David thought of her as sleeping intermittently for she 


DAVID STAYS AWAY 295 

had formed the habit, when she had many babies, of 
rousing at small stirrings. She had the knack of 
leaving the big, double bed, where she slept with her 
husband, without awakening him when she went her 
rounds to see that every child was covered and was 
safe and warm. 

David telegraphed to Fidelia: “I have come to Itan- 
aca and will stay here till to-morrow. Will wire later.” 

He determined to take into his own hands the matter 
of his mother’s health so he called on Dr. Bradford 
with very unsatisfactory results, as the doctor seemed 
to observe nothing more definite than that Mrs. 
Herrick was “run down” and he hoped she would pick 
up soon. 

David asked, “Rest would certainly help her, 
wouldn’t it?” 

The doctor shook his head. “Not if you mean a trip 
to California and nothing to do, son. Not for the type 
of woman your mother is. I know her; she’d just fret 
herself to death.” 

That night David lay awake in the room he used to 
share with his brother Paul; Paul had been put else¬ 
where to-night. It was not easy for his mother to 
arrange that David have a room to himself but she had 
done it and when his door opened, very quietly, and 
his mother came in, David understood that she had 
done it for a particular purpose. 

He whispered to her, in order to make sure of rous¬ 
ing no one, and she came quietly to the bed. “I 
wanted you to be awake, David,” she said. 

He clasped his arm about her and felt with new 
alarm how thin she was under her nightdress and robe. 





296 


FIDELIA 


David said, “I’ve seen Bradford to-day, mother, and 
he’s an old dodderer. You’ve got to come to Chicago 
with me to-morrow and see a specialist.” 

Then she told him, “David, I have. I went down to 
Peoria and I saw Dr. Winstrom there. He’s as good a 
doctor as there is in the state, they say. He was very 
thorough with me, David; he saw me several times.” 

When David whispered, “What did he say?” she 
evaded and replied, “Your father doesn’t know I went. 
I could go back and forth from Peoria in little more 
than an hour. He must not know I went, David. 
You see, my son, my son,” she whispered to him 
steadily although she repeated some words, “Dr. Win¬ 
strom made some definite tests; he knows. He is sure 
and he has told me the truth. You see, there’s nothing 
to be done for me.” 

“What? What?” 

“No; there is nothing which any one can do.” 

David was on his knees beside her. She smoothed 
his hair. “My son, my strong son, I have told no one 
else, not even Deborah, who had to know when I went 
to Peoria. It has been my secret, David, with God.” 

With God! David rebelled. Where was God in 
this? He asked his mother, “What—what does the 
doctor call it?” 

Her hand became quiet upon his head. “You’ll go 
to the doctor, David?” 

“The first thing in the morning.” 

“Let him tell you, then. I’ve another year, my son; 
perhaps not quite so long. They don’t know exactly 
about that.” 

David choked and clung to her and his mother 


DAVID STAYS AWAY 297 

sank to her knees beside him. “Pray with me 
David.” 

“What shall I pray?” 

She said: “How do you pray now, my son?” 

“Mother, I haven’t prayed for years.” 

“Yes,” she said, not rebuking him at all. “Yes, I 
supposed so. I’ve come to pray differently, David; 
I say our Lord’s prayer and now four words, mostly, 
and they are from our Lord’s prayer. ‘Thy will be 
done,’ I say. ‘Thy will be done.’ ” 

She whispered the prayer and he tried to repeat 
it with her but a mighty guilt filled him. He thought 
of his father and mother praying beside him when he 
was a baby and consecrating him to God, if God spared 
his life; and after God had spared him, he had cheated 
God. And who could cheat God, the Lord God to 
whom vengeance belongeth? For God, if he was God, 
must have done this thing to his mother and for no 
fault of hers but for David’s. 

What did God say of himself in his own command¬ 
ment? “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, 
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.” 

But suppose there were no children; suppose your 
sin saw to that? Suppose, defying God, you lived 
after your desire but denying children. Then God 
struck your mother. 

David heard his mother’s voice repeating the beau¬ 
tiful words of the twenty-third psalm: 

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want; 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. . . . 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me. . . . 


298 FIDELIA 

A few moments later, she arose quietly and kissed 
David and left him. 

Early in the morning he went to Peoria and saw the 
doctor who told him the entire truth. Winstrom said, 
“You are the eldest son, of whom she spoke to me?” 

“What did she tell you about me?” David asked. 

“If your father discovered that she had consulted 
me, or if any other of the family came, I was to re¬ 
assure them as much as possible; but she said to tell 
you the entire truth.” 

David fought the truth, when it was told, and he 
tried to deny it; but the doctor took the time to show 
that there was no doubt of the condition. 

David declared, “Fll send her away.” But Win¬ 
strom, like Bradford, shook his head and said, “In a 
case like this, the most merciful course is to allow her 
to keep at her duties as long as she can and to let 
others learn only as they must.” 

At noon, David returned to Itanaca and he tele¬ 
graphed Fidelia saying again that he would stay away 
for another night and that he would explain later; for 
he could put no adequate explanation in a telegram. 
He stayed, in fact, far into the following day and it 
was late in the afternoon when he took a train for 
Chicago. 

He had spent most of his hours close to his mother 
and had occupied himself so completely with home 
affairs that he had seen few others than the family and 
had visited Mr. Fuller only for a brief, perfunctory 
call. 

As he sat by the car window, watching the dusk 


DAVID STAYS AWAY 


299 


settle over the bare, black October fields, he realized 
that he had boarded the ordinary day-coach and that 
thought of the parlor car, in which he had traveled 
to and from Itanaca with Fidelia, had never entered 
his mind. In contrast to his feeling when he started 
from Chicago, he was physically tired; he was without 
eagerness and appetite. When he thought of Fidelia, 
he thought of having to tell her the terrible news he 
bore; it so filled him, it so completely explained what 
he had done that he never reckoned what she might 
be believing in her almost complete lack of informa¬ 
tion about him. He forgot that when he left Fidelia, 
both of them had been feeling that he was, in a way, 
returning for a while to Alice; he forgot how Fidelia 
had urged him to stay longer where Alice was, if he 
wanted to, and he did not attach the two extra days 
of his absence to the day he had spent with Alice. 
Yet, as he reckoned the total time and realized that 
it was by far his longest separation from Fidelia, since 
their marriage, he wished he had written her once, at 
least; but he had not because each day he had ex¬ 
pected to return to her that night. 

“She’ll be hurt,” he realized. “But it won’t last 
with her.” The train began running into rain. The 
clear weather of the western edge of the state was 
changed to a downpour as the train approached the 
lake; squalls of water washed the window at David’s 
elbow and the lightning crashed in great streaks from 
the sky. 

David had not telegraphed to Fidelia the hour of 
his return for he did not want to meet her first in the 
railroad station and when he arrived in the middle of 


300 


FIDELIA 


a thunderstorm, he decided not to try to telephone to 
her. He took a taxi at once for the hotel. 

It was nine o’clock in the evening and the city 
streets of course were alight. Long, even rows of 
street lamps glowed behind the blur of the rain and 
the great blocks of office buildings rose with windows 
patterned here and there with light. Above them 
the lightning forked and thunder rumbled but the 
lightning and thunder seemed powerless here in the 
city, and buildings walled off the gale. Then there 
was a sudden, tremendous bolt and instantly the 
streets were dark; the patterns of the windows were 
gone and amid rumblings of tremendous thunder, the 
car carrying David skidded to the side and stopped. 

Drivers switched on their bright headlights, and re¬ 
sumed their way but the buildings which David passed 
remained dark except where a ruddy flame burst above 
a roof; and between the crashes of thunder, there beat 
an alarm bell. 

Gradually lights reappeared; when David reached 
the hotel, it was alight as usual. His wife was in, he § 
learned, but she was not downstairs and he went at 
once to their rooms where he found the door closed 
but not locked and he opened it slowly. 

“Fidelia,” he called as he entered. 

The light was burning in their living-room but she 
was not there. Their bed-room was dark except for 
the light through the door from the living room and 
by this he saw that she was rising from her bed. She 
was dressed; she merely had been lying upon the 
bed, without having opened the covers and he saw 


DAVID STAYS AWAY 


301 




that she was wearing a white ratinee house dress which 
she often put on for the morning but never had worn 
after noon. 

He noticed this simultaneously with being aware of 
the paleness of her face. Rarely, never indeed, had 
he seen her pale like this. He said, “Something’s 
happened, Fidelia!” 

For a second, she stared at him; she moved so as 
to make him turn more to the light; then she said: 
“Yes, he’s alive, David!” 

“What?” 

“He’s alive, I said, David.” 

“Who?” 

“My husband.” 

“Who?” 

“My husband. Sam—Sam Bolton. He’s alive.” 

“What? Who? What?” 

“Sam’s alive, David. I told you he was dead. I 
thought he was dead. I had good reason to think so. 
But he’s alive, David. He’s alive and he’s my 
husband.” 




CHAPTER XXVII 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 

D AVID fumbled for the light switch; he pressed 
it and saw her plainly and as he stared upon 
her, she became florid with flushes of hot 
blood and her bosom swelled with her breath and was 
full. He held out his arms to her as he asked again, 
as though in the dark when he could not well see her 
he must have misunderstood. “What happened when 
I was away, Fidelia ?” 

“Sam,” she said, “I told you about him before; you 
can’t say I didn’t tell you about him long ago, David 
—Sam, Sam Bolton, my husband.” 

“Your husband,” David repeated, dropping his arms. 
There she was saying the same thing again and in the 
light. “Bolton your husband! He was your hus¬ 
band, you mean?” 

“Yes; of course, David.” 

“You mean you married him?” 

“Of course I married him, David. What did you 
think, after what I told you? I told you we’d been 
in camp; did you think after what I’d told you, I 
wasn’t married to him?” 

“Married! ” repeated David. “Married! You were 
married and you never told me?” 

“But I did or I practically did.” 

“Practically!” he repeated. “Practically!” 

“And I thought he was dead. Any one would have 
302 


303 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 

thought he was dead, David! The court thought so.” 

“The court,” said David in his daze. Above him, 
thunder crashed; the room lights went down but in a 
moment were bright. “The court thought he was 
dead, so you did. When did you find out he wasn’t?” 

“To-day, David.” 

“To-day. How’d you find out? What happened? 
What happened when I was away, Fidelia? Did he 
come here?” 

“No, David; he couldn’t come here. He’s in the 
war.” 

She cast no comparison at him but David felt it. 
Sam Bolton whom she had loved before she knew 
David Herrick, Bolton with whom she had cooked 
that happy camp supper, which David could never 
forget, Sam Bolton, who she thought was dead but 
who was alive and was her husband, was not here in 
a safe, comfortable place; he was in the war! “He 
was in London, when he wrote me,” she explained. 
“He’d just come to London from France where he’s 
been fighting, David. He sent for me to come to Lon¬ 
don; he wants me with him there.” 

“You talk,” said David, “as though you had an idea 
of going.” 

“Of course I’m going, David.” 

He did not set himself yet to combat her; he did 
not yet believe what she said. From among the thou¬ 
sand items of this affair which he needed to know be¬ 
fore he could combat her, he chose one to ask. 

“When was this, Fidelia?” 

“What?” 

“Your marriage to him.” 


304 


FIDELIA 


“In the summer, David.” 

“What summer?” 

“When I had my camp with him. I told you I had 
my camp with him: you know I told you about that, 
David.” 

“I thought it was one supper. You stayed in camp, 
then. You lived with him.” 

“Of course, David. I was his wife.” 

“How long were you?” 

“Just eleven days, David.” 

“What?” 

“That was all; just eleven days!” 

“Then what happened?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know? Of course you do.” 

“I don’t, David. I thought I did know but I didn’t. 
I was wrong about him, you see. I’m trying to tell 
you, David; but I can’t tell you all in a hurry.” 

David burst out: “My God, all in a hurry! 
You’re talking about a hurry and we’ve been married 
three and a half years!” 

“But I thought he’d been dead almost two years, 
when I married you, David. It was July, five years 
ago, I married Sam.” 

“The summer before you came to Northwestern?” 
David could not put his mind to counting the years. 

“No; the summer before that. It was in Idaho, 
David; near Lakoon, a town named Lakoon, in Idaho. 
It’s in the northern part. We were married there and 
we went down into the valley below Lakoon, where 
we camped.” 

Their bridal camp on the Wisconsin shore flashed 


305 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 

into David’s thought; so she had had another bridal 
camp before. With whom? Bolton was yet only a 
name. David challenged her: “Who was Sam 
Bolton?” 

“Why, I’ve his picture here,” Fidelia said; and she 
turned to the drawer of her writing desk and brought 
forth a small, square photograph which was an un¬ 
mounted snap-shot of a tall, broad-shouldered man 
with black hair and heavy brows and with a strong, 
straight nose and vain, willful mouth and chin. He 
was a handsome man; no one could deny that; and 
he carried himself with the air of a dare-devil. 

David took the picture from her but he held his 
shaking fingers from tearing it across. He demanded 
of her: “You’ve kept this with you all the time 
we’ve been married?” 

“Oh, no, David. I got it only to-day.” 

He saw then that this picture was not of her hus¬ 
band of five years ago; the flannel shirt and khaki 
trousers which he wore were uniform, not camping 
clothes. 

“How did you get it to-day?” 

“It came in Sam’s letter, which I got to-day.” 

“How did you get his letter to-day?” 

“I went to the post office for it. When you didn’t 
come home, I went to the post office and asked for it 
and there it was, David; it had been waiting for me 
almost a week.” 

“When I didn’t come home—what in the world are 
you talking about?” 

“Sam’s letter, David. You see, I wrote him—I 
mean I wrote his brother’s wife, Flora Bolton, after 



306 


FIDELIA 


your father was here last August because I wanted to 
be sure I could have children, now, David. I thought 
Sam was dead; I had good reason to think so; but 
before you and I had children, didn’t I have to be 
absolutely sure about it, David?” 

“What’ve children to do with this?” 

“Why, everything, David. They were all the trou¬ 
ble with your father, weren’t they—because I wasn’t 
having them? That was why he stopped taking your 
money, wasn’t it? So I thought I’d have them, 
David; but I had to make sure then—didn’t I?—that 
Sam was dead. So I wrote Flora Bolton way back in 
August to find out if the family had ever heard any¬ 
thing of Sam since he was lost. She didn’t write back 
to me, as I thought she would; she didn’t answer me 
at all, though I went and went to the post office to get 
her letter. She’d sent my letter to Sam in England 
for him to answer; but I didn’t know that, I kept on 
going to the post office for her letter for weeks, David, 
until that day I saw Alice in Evanston. I went down 
to the post office on that day, too; and there was noth¬ 
ing for me then. So I decided it must be all right then 
about children, David; I decided I wouldn’t go again. 
I didn’t go again until this morning; I wouldn’t have 
then, but you’d been away three days. You went to 
Rock Island to Alice, David, and you were sure you 
were coming back to have lunch with me the next 
day; but you didn’t. You went home after you’d 
been with Alice and you just telegraphed me; not a 
line, not a word about me, David. Til stay an¬ 
other day,’ you said, and ‘explain later.’ So this morn¬ 
ing I went down to the post office again to see if there 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 


307 


was anything there for me; and there it was, David, 
with Sam’s writing on the envelope and the English 
stamp and his picture inside.” 

Now she had in her hand a pale blue envelope with 
black, bold handwriting displaying characters formed 
with broad, sweeping flourishes which was addressed, 
“Mrs. Fidelia Netley, care General Delivery, Chicago.” 
She said, “You see, I signed myself Fidelia Netley to 
Flora.” 

“Why not Fidelia Herrick?” 

“I didn’t tell her I was married. She didn’t know 
I’d been married even to Sam.” 

“What?” 

“So Sam wrote me, as I signed myself to Flora; 
only he added ‘Mrs.’ Here’s his letter, David.” 

He took it and snatched out the enclosure. 

“Dear Fida,” he read the bold flourish of the words. 
“Who set you to asking about me? What sort is he? 
Not much mine, I’ll wager. A much more proper 
person, I imagine; your letter reeks of solidarity. 
You’re after the steady years now, aren’t you? I gave 
you days; and you gave me days; but, my God, they 
were days and nights. Eleven of them, weren’t they? 
They rise like eleven mountains over a plain of mole 
hills in my memory. Memory! It doesn’t seem like 
memory at all when I dream of you; you are—” 

David could read no more. Eleven days they had 
had together. He thought of the days of Fidelia and 
himself in camp and how, before their eleventh day, 
she wanted to break camp. He understood that bet¬ 
ter now. “What happened,” he demanded, “on the 
eleventh day between you and Bolton?” 


308 


FIDELIA 


“I’ll tell you. You see, David, he used to see me 
at Palo Alto.” 

“When was this?” 

“This was the start. He wanted me to marry him 
then; he said I must.” 

“He was in college with you?” 

“No; he just lived in California. He wasn’t a col¬ 
lege man; he wasn’t that sort. I liked him, David.” 

“Liked? That all?” 

“He scared off everybody else.” 

“How?” 

“He did. If you knew him, you’d understand.” 

“Never mind. What did you do with him?” 

“Do? In Palo Alto? Nothing, except tell him I 
wouldn’t marry him. Then college was out and I 
went up into Idaho.” 

“Why?” 

“Why, I had to go somewhere to get away from 
Sam. I had an invitation to visit a ranch from a girl 
I knew at Palo Alto. Sam guessed I’d gone with her; 
and he came after me.” 

“You mean,” said David bitterly, “you went to your 
friend in Idaho like you went to Dorothy Hess’s; then 
Bolton called for you like I did. You’d done all that 
before?” 

“That’s not true, David. I married him but I had 
no idea of marrying him when I went up to Mondora. 
The house party was all over before I thought of it. I 
was going off by myself—” 

“Where?” 

“I didn’t care much. I had no invitation; and I 
certainly wasn’t going back to White Falls. I’d some 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 


309 


money sent me from the bank and I was thinking of 
taking a trip when Sam came. He asked me to ride 
with him; and I did it. He had a horse for me. It 
was a wonderful day, David; I mean the weather. 
But there’d been a lot of rain just before.” 

“Never mind the weather.” 

“You don’t understand, David; the rain did it. 
The river was up.” 

“What river?” 

“The one by Lakoon. It wasn’t much of a river, 
usually; you could ride through it; but this day it 
certainly was up with the water coming down from 
the mountains. Sam said we could ford it anyway; 
but we couldn’t. We didn’t find it out till we were 
in the middle of it and our horses lost their feet. We 
were carried down, David.” 

She caught breath and told on. “There was a sort 
of canyon there, David. We got carried into it 
and lost our horses. They drowned. We almost 
drowned. I told you about that; I know, I told you 
something about this once.” 

“You did,” said David. This, of course, was the 
time when she had to fight water to live and which she 
had mentioned to him on that morning they saw the 
sunrise together. 

“David, I had no idea of marrying Sam when we 
rode into that river. I’d just been riding with him; 
then, there we were in the water, and our horses 
drowned and we—we had to fight for our lives—I’ll 
tell you! He’d help me and then I’d have a chance 
to help him when the water was whirling us about. 
It took you under, David; and there wasn’t any use 


310 


FIDELIA 


trying to land. You couldn’t, the way the rocks went 
up. You’ve seen a canyon, David. You just had to 
go with the water and beat and beat with all your 
strength till you could get to the top and suck in a 
breath. 

“Then all of a sudden it stopped, when it looked 
like it never would. The canyon, I mean. We 
weren’t in the water; we were ashore. We were lying 
side by side on some rocks and we were holding on to 
each other laughing; and I wasn’t tired at all. Sam 
wasn’t tired.” 

She stopped with her bosom rising and falling not 
from her effort in speaking; she was living again that 
moment on the rock in Sam Bolton’s arms and David 
saw her eyes agleam. 

“I felt wonderful, David. I thought I’d have to 
fight the water maybe an hour more; I didn’t know; 
then it was all over and I had all that strength left. 
Sam felt the same way. It was just about noon and 
he said: ‘We can be married this afternoon and 
come back here and camp beside this damned river.’ 

“That’s what he said, David. We’d beaten the 
river, you see; we’d beaten it together. But he didn’t 
feel through; I didn’t. I felt just sort of only started. 
I wanted to do something else hard and risky that I’d 
never done before. I said, ‘All right, Sam.’ I was 
lying on a rock, I remember; it was in the sun and 
hot. He’d let go of me and I sat up in the sun with 
my hair down to get it dry.” 

“Damn! ” cried David and saw her in the sun with 
her hair down and Bolton’s arms about her. 

“That’s the way it was! We walked to the nearest 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 


311 


place where Sam bought horses and we rode to Mon- 
dora and bought things and got married in Lakoon 
by the minister there and we rode down to the river, 
near where we went in, and we camped there. I was 
his wife for eleven days. Then Sam went away.” 

“At the end of eleven days?” 

“No; fourteen. I mean we got along for eleven 
days; we got along all right for a while.” 

“Yes,” said David. “He says so in his letter.” 

“Then we had a terrible time.” 

“Why?” 

“It was terrible, David. It went on three days and 
then I woke up in the morning and Sam was gone. 
He’d taken his horse and a few things and gone. 
There was a paper pinned to my blanket. ‘Fida,’ it 
said. He called me ‘Fida.’ ” 

“I saw that.” 

“He always did, David. I didn’t like it, as I do 
Fidel from you. He knew I didn’t like it so he al¬ 
ways called me ‘Fida’ to tease me. ‘I’m going off to 
give you time to get me straight in your head,’ he said. 
This is the note, David. ‘I’ll be back by night and 
if you’re here, you mean you’ll be a good girl. If 
you’re gone, don’t fear that I’ll follow you.’ I stayed 
in camp till noon, David. Then I went up to the 
town, to Lakoon.” 

“You mean you left him?” 

“I went up to the town.” 

“What did he do?” 

“I don’t know but he didn’t follow me to Lakoon. 
But he did come back to camp and stay there two 
days.” 




312 


FIDELIA 


“How do you know that?” 

“I saw the smoke of our fire.” 

“ ‘Our/ ” David repeated. “You weren’t in camp 
then?” 

“His fire, I mean, where ours used to be.” 

“How did you know it was his?” 

“I saw him about the camp.” 

“Then you went back to camp!” 

“I didn’t; I almost did; but I didn’t. I never spoke 
with him again and I don’t think he saw me. I’m 
sure he didn’t. Then he was gone, David. I heard 
he sold the horse he bought for himself the day we 
got married; he sold it to a man near Mondora and 
he took the train from there.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I went to Portland. It just happened to be Port¬ 
land. I didn’t go to anybody I knew. I didn’t men¬ 
tion to anybody that I’d been married. It turned out 
that I didn’t have to.” 

“You mean you had no baby.” 

“No; and I found out that Sam never told anybody, 
not even his own people. Neither of us wrote a let¬ 
ter from camp. Nobody knew, except people in 
Lakoon who never saw either of us before or since. 
Then in Portland, more than a year afterwards, I 
heard Sam was dead. He’d been killed in Alaska, 
they said.” 

“Who said?” 

“His own family. They’d been trying to locate 
him because of some trouble over a land title. His 
brother wanted to sell some land that Sam owned a 
share of; so Hartley had to trace Sam and they found 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 313 

he’d gone to Alaska and they got evidence that he’d 
died there. Anyway, they brought it into court and 
it was good enough to let Hartley sell the land.” 

“What did you do about it?” 

“Me? I just found out what I could, David. I 
hadn’t told Hartley that Sam married me; and I cer¬ 
tainly wouldn’t tell then. It would look like I was 
after a share of their land. I didn’t want any land.” 

“But why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I’m telling you now, David, now that I know Sam’s 
alive. He’s my husband; he’s never married any one 
else; he’s always wanted me. No one’ll say they 
won’t touch his money because he’s married to me. 
I’m going to him, David; I’m going.” And David 
realized that she wanted to go. 

He realized part, at least, of the hurt to her from 
his father; he realized part of the hurt to her from 
his own conduct in the last three days when he had 
left her alone to her own imaginings and interpreta¬ 
tions. This hurt would have healed; he could have 
healed it by now with his explanation of what he had 
done, if that letter from Bolton had not arrived and 
she had not called for it. But that letter, with its fact 
that Bolton was alive, made this irremediable. For 
it did not merely bear the news that her husband 
lived; reaching her when it did, under the circum¬ 
stances, it regained for Bolton something, at least, of 
his old domination over her. And David, confront¬ 
ing her, felt it. 

He felt that that man who had cooked with her the 
camp supper which had tasted “the best ever,” though 
it was burnt to a crisp—that man who had been vague 




314 


FIDELIA 


before and who, besides, had been dead and yet who 
had been the one of whom David never wanted to 
think—he felt that that man was drawing his wife 
away. 

David Herrick’s wife but also Sam Bolton’s; for 
Bolton had possessed her; he not merely had cooked 
one camp supper with her; he had been her husband 
and made her happy for eleven days, so happy that, 
after she had left him, she almost returned to Bolton; 
almost, but not quite. Now she would go back to him. 

David said, “This is why I stayed away from you, 
Fidelia. I went from Rock Island early in the morn¬ 
ing to Itanaca. I found my mother very sick.” 

“Why, David! Why, David, what was the mat¬ 
ter?” 

“I couldn’t find out at once; that was one of the 
reasons I had to stay. It wasn’t the sort of a sick¬ 
ness a person admits, Fidelia. I’m not telling you 
this to have you pity me. I don’t want pity, Fidelia; 
but I won’t have you have any wrong idea about what 
I meant by staying away. I found my mother 
-dying.” 

“Oh, David, she’s—dead?” 

He shook his head. “They give her a year, Fi¬ 
delia.” And he told her the trouble. 

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you send 
for me?” 

He thought, “If I had, she’d not have got that 
letter. It would be lying in the post office without 
power over her.” 

“I couldn’t send for you,” he said. “No one else 
knows the truth but the doctor and mother and me 


315 


THE SECRET OF LAKOON 

and you, now. The one thing to do was not to make 
a fuss over it.” 

“I’d not make a fuss over her. But I could have 
done something. I love her so, David. Oh, I love 
her so.” 

“She doesn’t want anything done.” 

Fidelia touched him; her fingers closed on his wrist 
as she appealed, “But now, now they’re using your 
money, David!” And at this, he had to shake his 
head. 

Her hand unclasped and drew from him. “Now 
they will, David. I can do that for her; now he’ll 
take your money, for I’m going away.” 

She half turned from him, with her hand at the 
bosom of her dress and he saw that she was pulling 
at the snaps. For an instant, he imagined that she 
meant to dress for the street and to go at once; but 
when she dropped off her dress she went on preparing 
for bed. She offered no physical act for him to op¬ 
pose; she merely prepared for bed in their room, as 
she had always done; and when she had braided her 
hair and was in her nightdress, she stepped to him 
and kissed him: “Good night, David,” she said and 
she got into her own bed. 

He did not undress. He sat on his bed and gazed 
sometimes at Bolton’s wife; after she was in bed, he 
switched off the light and raised the blind and the 
window. 

A cool, damp wind blew in off the lake. The rain 
was over and the lightning had become faint and 
distant; it flashed very far away and the thunder was 
merely an echo out of the blackness over the water 




316 


FIDELIA 


but it reminded David Herrick how tremendous could 
be the might of God, call him God or Nature or All- 
Being or whatever he wished. 

David was thinking of him as God, the God of the 
Eternity which he had defied and which had made 
him tired, who had dealt with David Herrick this day. 

It was upon the following day, in the afternoon, that 
Fidelia left him. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

ILLUSION AND THE TRUTH 

A LICE heard of the separation of David and 
Fidelia six weeks after it happened; and the 
news reached Alice in the cruel, circuitous 
fashion in which such information often travels to the 
person most concerned. 

She was attending a luncheon which the Tau Gamma 
Alumnae in Chicago gave monthly at Field’s Tea Room. 
This was the December meeting and twenty girls were 
at the table. Most of them knew each other intimately 
from having been members of local Tau Gamma 
chapters when in college but there were always girls 
from distant chapters who had moved to Chicago and 
who attended the luncheons to meet the Chicago girls. 
To-day there was a young married woman who re¬ 
cently had arrived from Minneapolis and she said to 
the Northwestern group in general, “You all know 
Fidelia Netley, of course.” 

“We certainly do,” some one replied. 

“Do you happen to know what her present move 
is?” 

“Why, she’s been married to a man named Herrick 
for over three years,” a friend of Mice’s explained. 
“They’re living up on the north shore.” 

“Oh, I knew that in Minneapolis,” the stranger said. 
“I meant, what’s she doing since they separated?” 

“Separated!” cried a dozen girls at once; and Mice 
sat stiffened with fiery blood racing in her. 

317 



318 


FIDELIA 


“Why, didn’t you know that?” the Minneapolis girl 
asked, pleased with the sensational effect of her news. 

Every one gazed at Alice; then nearly every one was 
talking at once. “You mean she’s not living with 
Dave? . . . When was it . . . why . . 

“I don’t know,” the visitor had to answer to most of 
the questions. “I thought you would. It’s queer you 
don’t know anything about it.” 

“Not at all. We don’t see Fidelia from one year’s 
end to another, except by accident.” 

Then, through the chatter, Alice heard the Min¬ 
neapolis girl coherently explain: “I just happened 
to call her up at her hotel a couple of weeks ago, not 
knowing a soul here; and the hotel told me that Mr. 
David Herrick was residing there but he thought Mrs. 
Herrick was not. I asked when she’d be back and 
he was most carefully vague. You know the manner 
when one knows more than he ought to tell. But he 
made it perfectly plain to me that he didn’t expect 
her back at all.” 

A girl asked: “Then did you call Dave?” 

“No; I never knew him. I just knew Fidelia 
slightly, years ago.” 

“That’s all you know?” 

It proved to be all and Alice quickly realized this 
and she left the table. 

She wanted to be alone; she felt like singing; she 
felt lifted by the amazing relief at being able to think 
of David without having to picture him with Fidelia. 
No longer was Fidelia his wife; she was gone! 

Alice did not let herself imagine that Fidelia had 
left him of her own free will and at her own choice; 


ILLUSION AND THE TRUTH 


319 


far less did Alice dream that Fidelia had departed to 
go to another man. No; Alice had to allow her first 
exultation to be complete, so she imagined Fidelia 
going away because she had found that she had come 
to her end with David; and Alice had to allow herself 
to believe that she had much to do with this. 

How closely upon the heels of David’s presence wi'th 
her at Myra’s wedding had come the departure of 
Fidelia! But what now was to follow the departure? 
Where was Fidelia gone? What was David doing in 
regard to her? When would Alice hear from him? 

Fidelia was gone from the hotel, where David had 
remained; that, after all, was the total which Alice 
knew; and when Alice went home, she did not tell 
her news to her family. They might question it too 
much or question too much that it would result in 
anything happy to her; and she would let no doubt 
or suspicion destroy her dream to-day. 

She hovered about home on following days to be 
sure of keeping her happiness; she feared to meet 
some one who might know more about Fidelia and 
David and who would tell her some event which would 
dash her dream; but when one of the Tau Gamma 
girls, who had been at the luncheon, called her, it was 
to report that beyond any doubt David and Fidelia 
had had trouble. 

This girl had taken it upon herself to telephone 
David and had asked about Fidelia, saying that Tau 
Gamma was trying to get every alumna out for the 
Christmas meeting and would Fidelia be back in town 
then? The girl reported, “Alice, I talked to him 
and he doesn’t expect her back by Christmas or any 





320 


FIDELIA 


other time! I asked him where we might address 
her, and he told me in plain English that he didn’t 
know, but mail to her bank in White Falls would 
probably reach her, eventually.” 

A few days after this, Alice accepted an invitation 
to a dinner-dance which was to be held at the hotel 
Inhere David lived and which she had never visited 
since Fidelia and David took up their residence there. 

She knew that he was not to be in the party with 
her yet she prepared herself for that evening with a 
care to every little detail of her dress and toilet which 
she had not felt since the night of her last Tau Gamma 
dance. 

David happened to stay down town for dinner that 
evening, as he frequently did nowadays. He dined, 
more or less indifferently, at cafeterias where his table 
companions were economical, serious or hurried peo¬ 
ple; or he occupied himself with discovering strange, 
foreign-like cafes where men supped alone or gath¬ 
ered in argumentative groups, reading to each other 
paragraphs from Italian or Greek or 'Russian news¬ 
papers or where they played dominoes while they 
sipped ink-black coffee from glasses. Sometimes he 
went with Snelgrove to watch two good welter-weights 
“mix it” for four rounds or so before some delectable 
athletic association where Irving was popular. 

Of course the Vredicks and other friends at the 
hotel, who knew David had been “left,” made it a 
point to include him in their various entertainments 
but he seldom felt like accepting. To-night he had 


ILLUSION AND THE TRUTH 321 

dined alone and afterwards had gone to a picture thea¬ 
ter, so he arrived at the hotel about eleven o’clock. 

Every evening there was dancing and he had the 
habit of looking in at the floor of the main restaurant 
before going up to his lonely room. Thus he 
watched from the door to-night and suddenly recog- 
nized Alice among the dancers. 

She was in the arms of a tall, young man and her 
lovely head with its beautiful, dark hair was tilted a 
little as she looked up at him. She was in blue and 
silver; her dancing dress was blue, and silver slippers 
with small shining buckles were on her little feet. 
She was as she had been at the Tau Gamma dance 
four years ago when he had last danced with her; 
and as he saw her here at the hotel for the first time 
in three years, and saw her in blue and silver, he knew 
that she had come because she had learned that Fi¬ 
delia had left him. 

Then she saw him, and for the instant, she lost step; 
she confused her partner. She nodded to David; she 
flushed and looked up at her partner again, smiling 
and begging pardon. She danced on and David did 
not see her look at him again. 

When the music stopped, she stood with her back 
turned to him while she clapped with her partner for 
an encore; and she danced it; but when this was done, 
she avoided rejoining the group of her party. Indeed, 
David did not know that she was with a group. He 
waited for a few moments after she was seated and 
then he approached her; and although she gave no 
sign that she noticed him, he saw her suddenly ask 



322 


FIDELIA 


something of her partner which sent him away. So 
David came upon her alone and awaiting him with her 
clear, blue eyes looking up at him and very bright. 
“Good evening, David,” she said quietly but her 
breast was heaving. 

He replied and then asked, “You’ve heard, haven’t 
you?” 

“About what?” 

“Fidelia’s left me.” 

“What did you say?” 

“Fidelia left me; didn’t you know it, Alice?” 

“Yes,” she replied but till this moment she had not 
known that. These were the words she had expected 
him to say but not to say them as he did; for he told 
her Fidelia had truly left him. It was not that he 
had sent her away. 

With this, her triumph over Fidelia should have 
flown; it should have left Alice empty, it had so filled 
her before. But it did not. How could she care in 
what manner Fidelia had left since actually Fidelia 
was gone and David was beside her with no Fidelia 
about? 

“Sit down, David,” Alice said. 

“You want me to?” 

“Please.” 

“Why? What’s the'use?” 

“She’s gone, isn’t she, David? She’s not coming 
back, is she?” 

“No; she’s not coming back.” 

“Then what’s the difference to me whether she— 
went or you sent her away?” 

At this, he realized that she must have heard that 


ILLUSION AND THE TRUTH 323 

he had sent Fidelia away; she had come in her blue 
dress and silver slippers believing that, but finding it 
not true, what was the difference to her? 

He asked, humbly, “When can I talk with you?” 

“Whenever you want to.” 

“Where?” 

His words aggravated in Alice another where; 
where was Fidelia gone? Alice asked it. “Where’s 
she gone?” 

“Fidelia? She’s gone to London.” 

“England?” 

“England.” 

“But why?” 

“I’ll tell you, Alice; she has a husband there.” 

“A husband!” 

“That’s what she has.” He gasped as he said it 
and he looked around and asked, “Have you got to 
dance with that fellow now?” 

“I can’t. I mean, it doesn’t make any difference. 
I’m in a party; I’m not with anybody in particular.” 

. “Come along then.” And she accompanied him, 
not asking where he led. 

She was struggling with the tremendous thing he 
had told her when he said Fidelia had a husband in 
London. It must mean that she had had a husband 
before she married David; and when a girl had a hus¬ 
band, she was not really married to the second man 
at all; it must mean that David never was really her 
husband and he was not her husband now. 

Alice sat down on a lounge and he was beside her; 
they had come to a corner of a parlor where was no 
one else. 




324 


FIDELIA 


“How did she have a husband in London, David?” 

“He went there. He’s in the war with the Cana¬ 
dian forces. She married him five years ago, a year 
and a half before she came to Northwestern. He’s a 
man named Bolton she met in California.” 

Bolton was the name of the man of whom Myra had 
talked, Alice remembered; he was the man who had 
been at Palo Alto. 

David continued, “She married him in Idaho the 
summer after she left Stanford. They—stayed a 
while in Idaho, Alice; then they had trouble and sep¬ 
arated.” 

“Oh, divorced, you mean?” 

“No. They just separated and then Fidelia be¬ 
lieved he died. But he didn’t.” 

“Then she was married all the time.” 

“Yes; but she believed he was dead.” 

“But he wasn’t.” 

“No.” 

“How wasn’t he, David?” 

“He’d gone to Alaska and she thought—and his 
family thought—he’d died there; but he was just 
staying away.” 

“Then he came back and heard about you?” 

“No,” said David. “No; he didn’t know about me 
at all.” 

“What did happen, David?” 

“She heard he was alive and she left me. It hap¬ 
pened the night I got here from home. I went home 
from Rock Island, Alice. I went to see my mother; I 
found her sick so I stayed there two more days. 


ILLUSION AND THE TRUTH 325 

When I got home, Fidelia had heard from Bolton; and 
she wanted to go to him.” 

a Had heard, David? How?” 

“By letter.” 

“You mean he’d written to look her up?” 

“No; he’d written in answer to a letter of hers.” 

“Looking him up, David?” 

“Yes; something like that.” 

“You knew that when we were in Rock Island, 
David? That’s why you came to—Rock Island, be¬ 
cause Fidelia’d written to look up her husband?” 

“No,” said David. “I didn’t know anything about 
it, Alice.” And then, gazing at him, she understood. 
She said, “You mean you never knew anything about 
her husband at all?” 

“Not till I got back that night.” 

“The night she left you to go to him.” 

David arose and went a few steps away. He came 
back and gazing down at her dark hair and her sweet, 
upturned face and into her blue eyes, he said, “You 
know the truth of it now. I’m discarded goods.” 

“You’ve never been discarded by me!” 

He jerked up and filled his breast with a deep, 
violent breath and in a moment he asked, “Shall I take 
you to your party?” 

“I can’t dance with them now.” 

“Would you—dance with me?” 

“Dance!” she said and she quivered with remem¬ 
brance of their last dance together when he was going 
to Fidelia and she was trying to hold him from Fi¬ 
delia and when he, having her in his arms, had felt 


326 


FIDELIA 


her lacking in comparison with Fidelia. “I’ll dance 
with you, David,” she said and she arose and stepped 
in front of him and did not look back at him as he 
followed her to the dancing floor. 

Nor did he overtake her; he let her lead him while 
he watched her as she walked before him. At the 
edge of the floor, when she turned, he stepped to her 
quietly and thrust his right arm about her in the old, 
familiar way and her right hand, slender and smooth 
and gentle, slipped into his hand. 

He felt his heart pounding with his stir of remem¬ 
brance at this amazing moment; he felt his pulses to 
the tips of his fingers which clasped hers and he felt, 
against his pulse, the swifter, frightened racing of her 
heart. 

They took a few steps together and turned once 
about the floor; then she was breathless and, gasping, 
she told him, “This is all, David.” 

“What?” 

“It’s all I can stand!” 

He drew her to the edge of the floor and released 
her. “Good night, David,” she whispered and she 
slipped from him into the women’s rooms; and while he 
waited, she did not reappear. He learned, later, that 
she had left by another door and gone home; but 
still for an hour he remained downstairs and did not 
go up to the dark, empty suite which had been his and 
Fidelia’s. 




CHAPTER XXIX 


OF USE AGAIN 

D AVID gave up the rooms, where he had lived 
with Fidelia, and he moved from the hotel 
the next day. He had come to feel freer and 
more reasonable as a result of his talk with Alice and 
he appreciated the folly of the mixture of sentiment 
and stubbornness which had made him determine to 
maintain his home as it had been. 

Of course he had realized that sometime he would 
give up the rooms but he had been waiting to hear, 
definitely, that Fidelia had rejoined Bolton. He had 
not heard this; he had not heard anything at all from 
her. 

He moved about four miles south and nearer the 
center of the city, taking a room in a so-called bach¬ 
elors’ building near Lincoln Park. Except for the 
janitor’s wife and the maids of the staff who swept and 
dusted, there was not a woman living in the building. 

These quarters were considerably cheaper than the 
hotel suite and also they involved him in much less 
indirect expenditure. The move took him from the 
well-meant attentions of the Vredicks and his hotel 
friends and cast him more upon himself. He went 
home for Christmas and stayed there five days and 
he formed the habit of running down to Itanaca on 
the late train every Saturday afternoon and returning 
late Sunday night. 


327 


328 


FIDELIA 


His father again was permitting the use of his 
money for household expenditures for, as Fidelia had 
prophesied, her desertion of David satisfied his father. 

In Ephraim Herrick’s view, God had acted; and 
Ephraim could believe, consistently, that it might very 
well be that God had hastened his actions a little so 
that he might at the same time redeem David and 
lighten the burden which was weighing so heavily upon 
His faithful servant, Sarah. Ephraim did not yet have 
definite knowledge of the certainty of his wife’s doom; 
for David alone shared that secret with his mother. 
Before others of the family he played a cheerful con¬ 
fidence that she would soon improve and when he was 
alone with her he spent quiet hours discussing and 
contemplating the future life toward which, each week, 
she was more visibly traveling. 

When he returned to the city, he longed for com¬ 
panionship as he never had before and he could take 
less and less satisfaction in the diversions offered by 
Snelgrove and his other friends. He wanted to have 
with him some one who knew and felt what he was 
feeling; and Snelgrove and the Vredicks and the rest 
did not even know about his mother; he could not 
tell any of them. What he wanted was to go to 
Alice; but how could he seek her now? 

On her part, she was waiting for him. She had 
gained, from her meeting with him, also a freedom 
from her restraint. Upon the next morning, at break¬ 
fast with her father and mother, she had mentioned 
David boldly and added that she had seen him last 


OF USE AGAIN 


329 


night and that Fidelia had left him to go to a man 
whom she had married previously. 

“I danced with David,” Alice announced and she 
waited for what her parents would say. 

They possessed the caution and also the self-control 
to say little, immediately, but Sothron did not start 
to his office at the usual hour. He devoted half the 
morning to an anxious discussion with his wife yet 
they evolved nothing better than a proposal to take 
Alice to California. 

But Alice would not go. She simply refused and 
said, “Of course you want to take me away from 
David because you know I love him and you’re afraid 
I’ll marry him, if he asks me. Well, I will!” 

When her father suggested, “Suppose your mother 
and I both go to California and we close the house,” 
Alice replied, “I’ll stay in Chicago.” And nothing 
more was said about a trip. 

Some days later, her father asked Alice, “You’re 
seeing David?” 

“No; hp’s not made any effort to see me yet.” 

“But you think he will?” 

“I hope so, father.” 

“That means you’ll see him, if he does.” 

“Of course I will.” 

“Please have him come to the house, then; please 
do not go elsewhere to meet him.” 

Alice agreed, “I won’t—if he’ll come to the house.” 

Sothron said to his wife that night, “Her abjectness 
before that fellow is simply inconceivable.” 

“It’s not abjectness,” Alice’s mother corrected. 


330 


FIDELIA 


“It’s love of a sort you meet once or twice in a life¬ 
time. It may be the most wonderful or the most ter¬ 
rible thing in the world; or it’s both.” 

Alice became filled with new fears while she waited, 
hearing nothing from David. She thought: “Fi¬ 
delia has come back to him.” And while she was in 
the grip of this idea, she dreaded to pass the hotel 
or meet people who had been there. Then she learned 
that David had left the hotel and was living in a 
bachelors’ building; yet the fear that Fidelia would 
return, remained with her. 

One evening when she was in the city and she heard 
boys crying news of an attack by the Canadians, she 
thought, “Suppose her husband is killed. She’ll come 
back to David.” And Alice wondered whether, in 
law, Fidelia would become his wife again upon the 
fact of Bolton’s death. Alice bought a paper and 
looked in the list of Canadian officer casualties which 
the papers were then printing but the name Bolton 
did not appear. 

She rehearsed with herself David’s words and the 
tones of his voice when he had told her how Fidelia 
had left him for Bolton; and sometimes Alice con¬ 
vinced herself that even if Fidelia returned, David 
would not have her again; but it became more and 
more difficult for Alice to believe it, when the weeks 
went on without further word from him. 

Yet, might it not be that he was awaiting word from 
her? Finally, in February, she wrote to him: “David: 
To be sure that there may be no mere misunderstand¬ 
ing of anything, such as possibly you may misunder¬ 
stand why I could not continue my dance with you, I 


OF USE AGAIN 


331 


am sending this to say that if you wish to come to see 
me, you will find me at home to you.” 

He received this just before he left for Itanaca on 
Saturday and he carried it with him, so he had it when 
he returned on Sunday evening. From the station 
where, in August, he had called her number by mis¬ 
take, he called it deliberately and asked for her and 
inquired, “Is it too late to see you to-night?” 

She replied: “Come, David.” 

He felt choked by contending emotions, as he was 
admitted to the house. Here in this wide, handsome 
hall he had first come as an awkward, bashful fresh¬ 
man, fearing wealth and ease; here he had gained 
power over this girl so that her father had come to fear 
him; here he had returned when he was casting off 
Alice for Fidelia; here he was, himself cast off by 
Fidelia, seeking Alice again. 

She looked as she used to; but instead of approach¬ 
ing him as she had when, upon entering and finding 
her alone, he used to seize her and kiss her, she was 
standing away from him. She was paler a little, just 
now. She was in a soft, white silk dress showing 
something of her throat, and her arms were half bare, 
her slender, pretty arms. 

“I got your letter,” he said. “It’s like you to send 
it. I’ve wanted to come—awfully. I’d have called 
you yesterday but I was just going home; to Itanaca, I 
mean.” 

“Yes; that night you told me your mother had been 
sick. But surely she’s all right now.” 

David did not reply. He glanced toward a room 


332 


FIDELIA 


to the east, a small, pleasant room, overlooking the 
lake, where she and he used to sit. It had agreeable, 
shaded lights and on cool nights, a maple fire would 
be burning on the brick hearth. He caught the slight 
odor of the wood and he saw the flicker of flame. 

“Can we go in there?” he asked. 

“You want to?” 

He nodded and followed as she led into the little 
room. 

The window blinds were up, the curtains were not 
drawn and the lights were sufficiently shaded so that 
he could see out to the lake, and he thought that Alice 
intentionally had left that view of the lake where he 
had gone from her for Fidelia. 

The lawn was not white as it had been on the March 
evening of Alice’s skating party and there was no large 
field of ice afloat far out, but the shore hummocks and 
floe were there in a wide, glistening band along the 
beach. 

Alice looked out, as he was doing, and she asked 
him, “You’ve heard from Fidelia since she went back 
to—her husband?” 

“Once, indirectly. There’s a man named Jessop 
who used to be her guardian in White Falls.” 

“I know about Mr. Jessop,” Alice said. 

“Apparently she wrote him what she was doing and 
asked him to take the legal steps for the annulment of 
our marriage. He’s been taking them; they aren’t 
much. They consist chiefly in offering proof that 
Samuel Bolton, who married her at Lakoon, Idaho, 
five years ago, is the same Samuel Bolton who enlisted 


OF USE AGAIN 


333 


at Vancouver last year and now is a lieutenant in 
France. He made no mystery of himself at Vancou¬ 
ver when he reappeared so it’s really all over.” 

“Then you’re—divorced now.” 

“The marriage is annulled; it never was legal.” 

Alice glanced at the couch where David and she used 
to sit and she avoided it, seating herself upon a’small, 
wicker chair. 

“How were things at Itanaca, David?” 

“They’re all right but mother.” 

“Then she’s sick again?” 

“It’s the same sickness, Alice; it’ll always be the 
same or worse. She’ll not get well.” 

“Oh, why?” 

He told her and he set her to crying. It almost 
broke him down to have to report the truth about his 
mother and to make Alice cry; but when it was over, 
he felt enormous relief. He said, “Now I’ve put that 
on you—half of it, it seems.” 

She begged, “Does it, David? Oh, I’m so glad! It 
makes me feel of use again.” 

He said: “But I’ve no right to use you.” 

Swiftly she changed the subject. “I had a letter 
from Myra yesterday. Lan’s right in the middle of 
that terrible mixup below Nish. She copied a lot of 
his last letter to her and sent it on.” 

David had had a letter from Lan recently and so, 
starting with Lan and Myra, they talked about Bill 
Fraser and other men and about girls from their class, 
or from their college time, who had gone, or were go¬ 
ing “over.” 




334 


FIDELIA 


Long before he wanted to, David rose to go. 

“It’s wonderful to be able to talk with you again,” 
he said. “It’s made a different day for me.” 

She said, “You can come whenever you want to. I 
hope surely you’ll come when you get back from home.” 

“Every time?” 

“Every time, if you care to.” And she held forth 
her hand. 

He clasped it; and in a glow he went out on his 
way to his room. 

She also was aglow; but soon recollections, undeni¬ 
able ones with despair in them, seized her. Suppose 
he offered her love, could she feel sure of it? Suppose 
they progressed so far this time that they married and 
then Fidelia re-appeared; suppose to-day, in that line 
of trench across the north of France, the man who had 
drawn Fidelia away, was fallen. 


CHAPTER XXX 
“if she comes back” 

I N Myra’s letter to Alice, and upon a page which 
Alice did not mention to David, was the question, 
“What’s all this I hear about Dave and Fidelia 
separating? Is it so? And did it have anything to 
do with that Bolton man I heard about?” 

Alice wrote to Myra the acknowledged facts of the 
matter, and stated that Fidelia’s marriage to David 
had been annulled. Alice added, after much indeci¬ 
sion, “I am seeing David now.” 

The return mail from Rock Island brought a reply 
which exclaimed, “Then it’s struck! I always knew 
it would! She’s finished for you. Oh, I’m so glad, 
Allie! . . . Now I can tell you something I wanted 
to before and which maybe you’ve suspected from my 
staying safe at home and not trying to get across some¬ 
where to be nearer Lan. We’re going to have a baby. 
It’s the wonderfulest thing. . . 

It thrilled Alice but it also frightened her to be 
treated by Myra, the wife, almost as a wife herself 
and no longer as a girl who could never hope for a 
child and who therefore must not be shown the joy 
of another’s hope. How could Myra feel so sure that 
Fidelia “was finished” for Alice? 

Fidelia’s secret had proved to be as serious as Myra 
could have suspected; and it was true that Fidelia was 
gone away to be the wife of another man. But she 
335 


336 


FIDELIA 


was not “finished” for Alice; and would she ever be? 

Myra seemed to imagine that David and Alice could, 
if they would, ignore his three and a half years with 
Fidelia; she seemed to fancy that Fidelia had not 
changed him and her and that they had power to put 
themselves back where they were before Fidelia came 
to college on that snowy, winter night. But how dif¬ 
ferent were the hours, when now he came to the house, 
from any hours before! 

On a morning in March, Alice walked alone on the 
street to the west where stood the apartment in which 
David and she, four years ago, had planned to live. 

It had only been building then for they were to 
move in when the place was new; now, newer apart¬ 
ments were beside it and in comparison “their” apart¬ 
ment looked old and long occupied. 

She had not seen it since she had visited it with 
David on a day before Fidelia was known to either 
of them; and the sight of it revived in Alice the poign¬ 
ancy of his devotion to her then. To him, she had 
been without lack, until Fidelia came; but now, though 
Fidelia was gone and although she might remain away 
forever, Alice could never believe herself wholly suf¬ 
ficient to him. 

Sometimes, when she was with him, she said to her¬ 
self : “We’re as we were in sophomore year.” Or she 
said, “It is like our first year.” But she knew that she 
considered the likeness of manners, only. 

They shook hands upon meeting and upon parting; 
they occasionally sat side by side upon the lounge but 
as a rule they occupied separated chairs while they 


“IF SHE COMES BACK” 337 

talked of his mother, of business, of the war, of Lan 
and Myra and of anything and any one but Fidelia. 

Their minds swiftly re-established an intimacy in 
which Alice could feel no break. When he spoke of 
his relations with his father and with Mr. Fuller and 
when he told her of his difficulties with Snelgrove and 
the agency, it seemed just like long ago. It seemed to 
her not only that she had not heard these things for 
four years but also that he had not talked them to 
any one. 

“Did you talk this way with— her?” Alice asked 
him suddenly, one evening. 

He flushed and then went white as he looked at her 
and answered, “Of course not.” 

“Why not?” 

“We didn’t talk this way,” he replied. 

“How did you? I mean, I mean I don’t want to 
make you talk to me just this way.” 

“You don’t; you only let me, Alice,” he said. “And 
please keep on letting me. It’s marvelous to have this 
again.” 

“It is for me,” she said; but she thought, “It really 
can’t mean so much, for we were doing this when she 
took him away.” Alice thought: “I felt too much 
interest; I made myself too much like a partner in his 
work; she didn’t do that at all and she took him away. 
I’ll be lighter with him.” 

But it was no time to be light with him, when he 
came to her from his mother who was dying; and Alice 
could not dissemble the intensity of her concern in 
everything which affected him. She was happiest when 



338 


FIDELIA 


he discussed plans with her and when he reported 
progress of the plans, as he did in May when he told 
her: “I owe Mr. Fuller just twenty thousand now.” 

“You’ve paid off five thousand!” 

“I’ll make it five more this year, if business holds.” 

In June, his mother died. He was at home for sev¬ 
eral days previous and he wrote Alice where he was, 
but when the end came he did not inform her until he 
was ready to return to Chicago when he wired her the 
bare fact and that he was returning. 

She well knew the time of the evening train from 
Itanaca and she met him at the station with her car 
and drove him to her home. 

When they were alone there, he related to her, “I 
had a long talk with mother, a few days ago, about 
what I ought to do. They used to think I ought to 
go into the ministry, you remember.” 

“Yes, I remember,” said Alice. 

“Father thinks so still. He’s a literal person, but 
mother wasn’t, so much. She was loyal to father, ab¬ 
solutely, but broader. She told me that years ago 
she’d given up the idea that I’d go into the ministry 
or missions or even that I ought to. She wanted me 
to know that, before she went; she wanted me to 
know that she trusted me to work out my own best 
usefulness for myself. 

“That was a mighty big way of putting it up to me, 
wasn’t it?” 

He asked, “Do you remember that talk we had long 
ago, Alice—that talk which you said, at Rock Island, 
always marked the end of you and me? It was when I 


IF SHE COMES BACK 5 


339 


said Eternity made me tired; and you said, I thought 
you’d do for me in place of Eternity and then you 
said, I thought you wouldn’t but Fidelia would. 

“You meant that I turned to you, when I was first 
trying to shake off father’s ideas and when I’d got 
them shaken off, I turned to Fidelia. 

“Well, a few of the ideas I shook off—or thought 
I’d shaken off—are in me again and I think they’ll 
stay. I’ll never go into the ministry but I’ve got to 
set myself to more than making money and spending 
it. It’s right for me to make money, as I said that 
night in the snow; but also it’s certainly not enough.” 

“What are you going to do differently?” Alice asked. 

His need to do differently was met, temporarily at 
least, by his enrollment in the citizens’ volunteer train¬ 
ing camp which that summer was established at Fort 
Sheridan, in Illinois. It was the July when the British 
armies, seeking to relieve the frightful pressure of the 
German divisions before Verdun, were about the busi¬ 
ness of ceaseless slaughter in battle which soon earned 
the name of “the blood bath of the Somme.” 

The Russian front, too, was active and Italy was 
yet young in the war. The Serbians, swept from their 
native soil, were reforming in Macedonia, recruiting 
and making ready to turn. No one now talked con¬ 
fidently and carelessly, as had Vredick less than a 
year ago, about how the big bankers would soon call 
an end to war; most Americans were feeling them¬ 
selves drawn closer and closer into it and Congress al¬ 
ready had drafted the National Guard regiments into 
the regular army and offered to volunteers the chance 
for training which David accepted. 


340 


FIDELIA 


He enrolled against the vehemently spoken best 
judgment of Mr. Snelgrove. 

“Do your duty, boy!” Irving urged. “Go to it; 
but don’t pick the exact time when Hamilton is slip¬ 
ping out the sweetest, snappiest, sellingest little sum¬ 
mer tourings and all-weather sedans that this street 
ever seen. Here we wait for four long, lingering years 
—and I ain’t sayin’ they ain’t been lucrative in their 
way—yet they’re the waitin’ years lookin’ forward to 
luck like this model which all we need is you to sell 
it and set the street on its ear with rage and envy, and 
you pick this for the prize time to take a month off 
runnin’ at dummy sandbags and stickin’ em through 
with bayonets.” 

David recognized that his month at the camp was to 
be costly to him in money but he wanted it to cost 
him. Besides being expensive for him, the experience 
returned him to strict discipline and hard, muscle¬ 
taxing labor. 

It was much less lonely living in barracks than in 
a room in the city and he was busy nearly all his 
waking time and he was sure to be tired at night. 

He never had let himself get really “soft” and he re¬ 
learned the satisfaction of spending strength to 
exhaustion. 

One day, when the Fort was open to the public, Alice 
drove through without intention of inquiring for 
David, but she was looking for his figure in every 
group of men she passed. She found him, at last, with 
a company “digging in” technically under fire. He 
was all at it, working rapidly, ceaselessly and with 
more vigor than any other man, but also with more 


IF SHE COMES BACK” 


341 


grace. His strong, well-built body was graceful even 
when laboring with a shovel; and Alice thought of a 
time in their freshman year, when he supported him¬ 
self by labor, and she was going to college in a snow¬ 
storm and she had come upon him, in flannel shirt and 
with coat off, clearing a walk of the heavy snow with 
that same strong, vigorous, graceful swing of his body. 

She watched him as long as she dared; then she 
drove off before he saw her. 

At the end of the month, he returned to selling cars 
with so much energy that Snelgrove allowed that 
maybe the camp might help business after all. Irving 
thought that David’s better physcial condition ac¬ 
counted for his increased activity; but the actual im¬ 
petus was his determination to pay off his debt at the 
earliest possible moment and make himself free. 

He returned to his room in the city but he liked it 
even less than before. 

“I mean to move,” he announced to Alice one Sun¬ 
day afternoon in September when she and he were 
walking west from her home. 

“Where to?” she asked. “Back to a hotel where 
you’ll be more with people?” 

“No; I’m through with hotels. I’m crazy, I sup¬ 
pose, but since I’ve been shoveling and working with 
my back again, I’d like to keep on doing that sort of 
work. And I certainly have a hankering for a house 
and to take care of things again. When I get into 
that room of mine and all I have to do, before I go to 
bed, is turn out the light, I feel I’ve forgotten half a 
dozen things.” 


342 


FIDELIA 


Alice thought, “He did that for three and a half 
years with Fidelia but he doesn’t think of it now.” 

He went on. “I was brought up to take care of a 
house and to cut grass and shovel snow and tend a 
furnace; and I haven’t looked in the face of a furnace, 
hot or cold, for years.” 

Alice made no comment, but when they came to the 
corner at which they always turned, in these days, to 
avoid the block in which was “their” flat, she said: 
“Shall we go on to-day?” 

“Past the building, you mean?” 

She nodded and he said, “I went by a couple of 
weeks ago.” 

She said: “I did once last spring.” And they did 
not turn but this time went straight on and looked at 
the building and gazed at the windows on the second 
floor where was the apartment which was to have been 
theirs. 

When they were by the building, Alice said, “I want 
to stop dodging other things, David.” 

He said, “I do.” 

“I’m thinking about Fidelia, you know as well as 
you knew I was thinking about—our flat.” 

“Of course I knew.” 

“Where is she now, David? Do you know?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Where do you think she is?” 

“In London, I suppose; that’s where she was going 
and Jessop said she got there.” 

“How do you think of her there?” 

“With Bolton,” he said shortly, “when I think of 
her definitely.” 


“IF SHE COMES BACK 5 


343 


“Do you often think of her—definitely?” 

“Not more than I can help.” 

“Because you have to think of her with Bolton, 
when you do?” 

“Yes.” 

“I know,” said Alice, “how it was to have to think 
definitely of you at the hotel with her. I didn’t do it, 
more than I could help. But all through it I kept on 
loving you. Of course you know that, so it is useless 
not to say it. Do you keep on loving her, David?” 

“I loved her and I was happy with her—very, very 
happy for a while,” he replied. “Now—she’s not my 
wife, Alice. She was his wife before she was mine; 
she’s his again. I forget her entirely a good deal of 
the time; then I think a lot about her, when she was 
my wife. I’d lie to you, if I denied that; I can’t help 
remembering lots of things. I don’t ever expect to 
forget them; I can’t honestly say I want to. But I 
don’t want her again; it’s over between us—her and 
me.” 

“When was it over, David?” 

He stopped walking and, when he did, she stopped 
and he stood looking down at her. They had passed 
from the squares which were built up with flats, they 
had passed a square of little houses and had come to 
some vacant lots fringed with brown, September trees. 
Few people had met them on the walk and no one 
at all was near, now. 

He replied to her, after he had thought, “I don’t 
know. You see, what she told me about her husband 
came all on the night I got back from Itanaca just 
after I heard about mother. The next day she went 


344 


FIDELIA 


away, Fidelia did. So it was all mixed up in me with 
the trouble of mother’s. Finding out about mother 
and about Bolton—that he’d had Fidelia and she 
wanted to go back to him—fixed it for me so I didn’t 
feel much of anything for a while. What started me 
feeling again was the sight of you in the hotel. I 
wanted to go back to the time before I ever saw Fidelia. 
And there you were; and—here you are.” 

“But suppose her husband is killed! What’ll hap¬ 
pen then?” 

“With her?” 

“With you, David, and to me, if she comes back.” 

“I don’t wonder you ask it,” said David and ground 
his heel in the soil beside the walk. “My dear, my 
dear, I don’t wonder you ask it; but, oh God, I don’t 
see how I could ever hurt you again.” 

“You wouldn’t mean to, I know,” Alice said. “For 
you didn’t.” 

She turned and started back toward her home and in 
a moment he followed. 




CHAPTER XXXI 


AN END TO PRIDE 

W OULD she live always in fear of Fidelia’s 
return? Might it be that Fidelia was now 
nearing the city, suddenly to appear as she 
had on that night at college? Or might it be that 
Fidelia was further away than England? Might it 
not be, indeed, that Fidelia could never return? 

The long silence, without a word from her or of her, 
suggested this sometimes. It was a year since that 
day, following Myra’s wedding, when Fidelia had left 
David. A line to Mr. Jessup could clear up the ques¬ 
tion at once; and often Alice spurred her courage to 
suggest to David to write to White Falls but always 
her courage failed. David was trying to forget Fidelia 
and suppose a letter to Mr. Jessop should bring back 
Fidelia! So Alice clung to the happiness she had. 

She knew she could not keep it as it was, even if she 
would; soon David and she must have more—or noth¬ 
ing. He was working very hard to pay off another in¬ 
stallment of his debt and he succeeded in doing this on 
January first in spite of the fact that business fell off 
markedly in the last quarter of the year. 

The dullness was due to a general condition on the 
row which reflected the feeling of the months in which 
the President of the United States made his last peace 
appeal to the Powers and received the reply that the 
345 




346 FIDELIA 

Powers could not enter negotiations until they reached 
their Objectives. 

“The agency is certainly not worth what it was/’ 
David said to Alice, when he reported to her that he 
had made his second payment to Mr. Fuller, “but I 
think I could get the last fifteen thousand I owe—or 
something close to it—if I sold out my interest.” 

“You mean you’re thinking of selling out?” she 
asked. 

“Shouldn’t we?” he replied, speaking the “we” for 
her and him, which he had not said since they were in 
college. “This country’s surely going into the war; 
and selling out is the only way for me to be ready.” 

“You ought to be ready,” she said and her heart 
halted. 

Barely a month after this day the President sent 
back Bernstorff to Berlin. 

It was a Saturday, upon which this was announced, 
and David telephoned to Alice early in the afternoon 
and when he had told her the news, he said, “No one’s 
going to buy a car to-day and I don’t feel like selling, 
either. Do you mind if I come out early?” 

Alice told him that she did not mind; and while she 
waited, she shut herself in her room with a letter from 
Myra, which had arrived a few days before. Myra 
was full of fear for Lan who was in Serbia and who 
had not been heard from in two months. Alice 
trembled as she held the letter and she declared to her¬ 
self: “He’s going away too; and it’s your pride that’s 
been keeping you from him. You’re still hurt because 
he preferred her to you and you’re afraid to have what 


AN END TO PRIDE 


347 


you can for fear she’ll take him from you again.” 

Alice opened the letter and a snapshot of Myra’s 
baby boy slipped out. Alice recovered it and quiv¬ 
ered. “You’ll take him to-day or never,” she threat¬ 
ened herself. 

David was reckoning, as he drove out from his of¬ 
fice, the exceedingly unsatisfactory sum of his achieve¬ 
ment which consisted in the sale, to more or less will¬ 
ing customers, of a few hundred motorcars and in the 
expenditure of most of his profits in temporarily agree¬ 
able living with Fidelia at a hotel. 

Now she was gone and their friends, of his extrava¬ 
gant days, meant so little to him that he had not seen 
one of them in months. He felt he had accomplished 
nothing since he had left college; he felt how very dif¬ 
ferent might have been this day for him if he had been 
true to Alice. How different might have been this day 
for her, if he had stayed true! He deserved the bit¬ 
terness of this reckoning, but she did not. His thought 
swept back through their years in college together and 
to the day when, trembling and incredulous that she 
could care for him, he asked her clumsily for the right 
to be always her friend and she had cried and kissed 
him. 

David drove very fast in his haste to her. 

He found her at the door when he arrived and the 
manner of his coming, and of her waiting, was like 
long ago. He flung off his coat and followed her into 
their little room overlooking the lake. 

“You’re lovely,” he said as they stood and gazed at 
each other. His word recalled words spoken to her 


348 


FIDELIA 


years before; he did not think at all of Fidelia. “You 
loyal, little Alice! What can I do to-day? Tell me 
what I can do?” 

“Love me!” 

“Love you! Oh, my God, I do!” 

“Do you, David?” 

“You mean—do I forget her? I don’t! I told the 
truth that day. Often I think of her, when she was my 
wife. I suppose I always will. But I don’t want her 
now; and that’s as true as the other. Alice, I want 
you!” 

“I want you, David! ” She raised her hands against 
him when he moved; and he halted as she held him with 
her slender, gentle hands. “But I’ve always wanted 
you,” she said. 

“Yes,” he replied and was silent. 

“David, in my room, after you telephoned, I said that 
pride musn’t make any difference to-day. You’re go¬ 
ing to war as Lan went. Nothing like pride should 
make any difference; but it does! David, you had me 
and you wanted her and you got her and kept her till 
she left you.” 

David said, “How can I deny that?” 

“You can’t but you can tell me another truth. Tell 
me, if it’s the truth, David, but only if it’s true! You 
went to her because there was lack in me; but you 
found lack in her, too, didn’t you? Else, why did you 
telephone me that day your father bothered you? That 
day—that day, at least—she wasn’t everything for 
you! You wanted me, though you had her; is that 
true?” 

“Yes.” 


AN END TO PRIDE 


349 


“Then say to me, though you had her you wanted 
me! It’s true!” 

“Though I had her, I wanted you. Yes; that’s 
true.” 

“I don’t ask you to say anything else. If there was 
one time you wanted me, though you had her, there 
must have been others; but I don’t ask you to say more 
of her. It’s enough, David; that silly pride of mine 
is down. It’s all right!” 

“You mean I can—” 

“Your arms, David . . . Davey, your lips. . . . 
Oh, again! . . .” 

In the next room, upon the second day, they were 
married by his father before her family and Myra and 
Deborah and his brother Paul. 

They chose for their wedding trip the mountains of 
North Carolina and the train on which they journeyed 
halted in Indianapolis on the night of the news of the 
British attack and capture of Grandcourt. 

A window was raised in the compartment which 
Alice and David shared; and as she lay awake, she 
heard, outside the screen, voices of men who were 
passing beside the car. One said, “I bet the Cana¬ 
dians were in it. They’re always in an attack; they’re 
getting the casualties.” 

For an instant, the words brought to Alice an image 
of Bolton killed and Fidelia returning. 

Alice moved her hand in the dark and touched her 
husband. 



CHAPTER XXXII 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 

LICE was very happy. The days of their 



wedding journey became for her a period of 


almost unbelievable content. She had David 
and she was away with him where Fidelia had never 
been and could never come! And he was happy. He 
told her so and she knew it. He said to her, when 
they had only a room in a mountain hotel, “IPs home 
to be with you. It’s like having been away, Alice, 
and come home.” 

Not only were they happy of themselves but while 
they were in North Carolina, they received only good 
news. The crisis following the break in relations with 
Germany, seemed to be less tense; there appeared to 
by a chance for peace; and Alice had a letter from 
Myra which reported that Lan was safe. He had had 
typhus but was recuperating splendidly. 

Alice longed to stay and to keep David in the secu¬ 
rity of the mountains but she would not alter his ar¬ 
rangement which required him to return to the office 
at the end of the week. So, after seven days, they 
again were in Chicago where Fidelia had been and 
where, at any moment, again she might be. They went 
for one night to the Sothrons’; upon the next day they 
found and immediately moved into a bungalow which 
was to rent, furnished. It had a wide, rough stone 
chimney, with a cozy hearth and stood in a little lot 
of its own, all of which delighted Alice. 


351 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 

Happy now?” David asked her, when they were in 
and every one else was shut out. 

“I never dreamed I could be so happy, David. Are 
you?” 

. He touched her cheek and then turned her face up to 
his. “I know what's in your dear little head when you 
look at me like that, Alice: am I as happy as I was 
with Fidelia?” 

“David, I don’t mean to ask it.” 

“You can’t help it. And I can’t help it. Dear, this 
is very different;and this is better, sweet little heart. 
Now kiss me.” 

She did and he said, “This feels like home, Alice; 
and I never had that feeling before. We’ll buy this 
house, as soon as we can, won’t we?” 

“I’d love to. It’ll do us for years or at least until 
we have more than two children.” 

“Yes,” he said and slipped his hand over hers as he 
realized that she was taking up her plan with him 
just where they had left it off five years ago. 

It was indeed very different from being married to 
Fidelia; it was, indeed, very like having been away 
and having come home. And it was good but it was 
so different that a comparison was really impossible. 
So he could say “better” as honestly as he could say 
anything else. 

To him it sometimes seemed that a different person— 
or at least a different part of him—had married and 
lived with Fidelia, had climbed with her upon the 
Throne of Saturn and played with her at being Titans 
on the far-away dawn of creation’s day. That part— 
that reckless, pagan impulse which had possessed him 




352 FIDELIA 

—gave him no trouble now. Purposes possessed him 
and made him happy. 

He continued at his business of selling cars with 
which he combined efforts to sell his partnership; but 
Snelgrove had no idea of buying him out and remain¬ 
ing in business by himself and many a partnership was 
for sale in these days. 

‘Til be lucky to get ten thousand for my interest 
now/’ he reported to Alice, after he had been busy for 
several weeks and just after the President had called 
for April second the special congress which already was 
named the war congress. David added, “And I’ll get 
less later; so I’ll take what I can get to-morrow.” 

“Yes,” said Alice. “I would.” She drew close to 
him and then, in order to discuss their future calmly, 
she drew away. 

“When you go, I’ll move back to father’s, unless 
you’d rather I stayed here.” 

“No; that wouldn’t be sensible at all,” he said. 

“But I’ll keep the house ours. I just can’t give it 
up, David. It’s our place where I’ve been with you.” 

“You’ll have from me,” said David, “probably the 
pay of an army lieutenant, at most. And we’ve only 
a lease till May.” 

Then she told him, “The owners aren’t coming back, 
on account of the war. They want to sell or lease; so 
let’s lease even if I have to sublet to keep this house 
ours.” 

David procured a bona fide offer of ten thousand 
dollars for his partnership, including stock and his in- 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 353 

terest in orders and accounts collectable. He wrote to 
Mr. Fuller about it and received a reply advising him 
to accept, as the amount would exactly cancel the 
balance owing. 

As the balance was fifteen thousand, this answer 
was puzzling, until David received, through Fuller’s 
bank in Itanaca, one of his notes for five thousand 
dollars stamped “paid and cancelled.” 

Knowing Mr. Fuller, David had no illusion that the 
cancelling of this note was a bit of philanthropy and 
it was equally impossible that it was a mistake. At 
once David suspected the truth; Alice had paid the 
note. She had done as he had believed she would do 
when he had been thinking about her that night he 
sailed by her windows on the Vll Show You! she 
was sending him to war. And sending him, she would 
keep as long as she lived—if he did not return—the 
home where she had been with him. 

He sold out his business and paid his debt to Mr. 
Fuller and, owing only to Alice, he went to Fort Sher¬ 
idan when war was declared. 

It was a stern and very serious course of training 
which he underwent for a brief, intensive period. 
The citizens’ camp of the year before seemed almost 
like play in comparison; this, plainly was a prelude to 
war. It absorbed him, excited him, exhausted him for 
he went into it with all his energy. He could not go 
at anything half way and he liked to work not only with 
his muscles but with his mind, too. 

He liked mathematics and the instructors were eager 
for men with strong bodies and clear, vigorous minds 



354 


FIDELIA 


capable of grappling with the intricacies of ballistics, 
trajectories and the rest of the problems of modern 
ordnance, after the other work was done. 

It was something like being at school again; and to 
Alice he seemed to be at school; and though she could 
not come to class with him, yet she could visit the 
camp at prescribed hours of certain days; and even this 
prelude to war had its intermissions which permitted 
David to go to Chicago. 

He telephoned to her, and she met him at the train 
and in the city they would have supper together be¬ 
fore going to a theater or somewhere to dance. Then 
they went to the bungalow; for Alice was staying there 
while he was at the Fort. 

They were under the constant excitement of war; 
and they were sure that he would be sent overseas, as 
soon as he was commissioned; but when he was made 
first lieutenant, he was moved, not to France, but to 
Camp Grant, near Rockford, in Illinois, where the 
drafted men were coming to be trained. So Alice 
sublet the bungalow and followed to Rockford where 
she took a furnished room in a boarding-house with 
other officers’ wives. 

She was happy and impatient for a child. Wives of 
her own age and with children lived in the house with 
her; other wives who arrived as brides had secrets to 
whisper as the summer wore on; they appeared with 
nainsooks and soft, fine flannels in work-baskets which 
had been filled with wool yarn for soldiers’ socks; and 
they boasted, proudly, of morning indispositions. But 
Alice remained as usual. 

It bewildered her because of her previous confidence 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 355 

that she was certain to bear. Of course, she realized 
that the first half year was no test yet it might be all of 
her time; at any moment the order might be given for 
the division, to which David was attached, to entrain 
for a port. Indeed, repeatedly rumor ran in Rockford 
that the division was immediately to go overseas to 
complete its instruction in France or England. 

There Fidelia was; and amid Alice’s fears of the 
war, grew again fear of Fidelia, which for a time had 
abated. She imagined, not Fidelia’s return, but 
David’s meeting her on a London street. “What 
then?” Alice challenged herself. “Nothing,” herself 
replied. No act, surely, and no word disloyal to her; 
for acts and words would be within his control. But 
feeling would not be! 

She put down such thoughts. David showed noth¬ 
ing but love for her, even when he was caught off 
guard. 

She was standing with David and a few other girls 
and men on a Rockford street when a man came up and 
hailed, “Hello, Herrick! How’s that wonderful wife 
of yours?” 

“Hello,” David replied and he caught Alice’s arm 
with a firmness of pressure which she did not under¬ 
stand until she met the stranger’s stare after David 
said, “This is my wife.” 

“Oh!” said the fellow. “Oh! Glad to meet you,” 
he muttered and turned away without interest. 

David led her away from the others and she looked 
up at him and asked, “He knew you and Fidelia?” 

“The idiot!” David said and swore at the fellow and 
clung to her and made her happy. 




356 


FIDELIA 


No; she had no right to fear Fidelia in England. 

As it proved, David never went across. He was very 
well liked and he worked hard and gained a recom¬ 
mendation which won him a captaincy and assignment, 
with other officers of unusual energy and ability, to 
take special instruction at the School of Fire, at 
Fort Sill, which was in the southwestern part of 
Oklahoma. 

This fort was near the town of Lawton; so Alice 
went there and found furnished quarters in an Okla¬ 
homa boarding-house where, through winter rain and 
summer drought and dust and heat, while David drilled 
for the great artillery attack which was to be made 
in the spring of 1919, Alice watched the war out. 

Other wives at the boarding-house went home, at 
their appointed times in that year, and telegrams ar¬ 
rived telling of the birth of a boy or a girl; some of the 
mothers returned with their babies; and a few had 
their babies born at Lawton; but Alice was without 
child and she returned alone with David to the bunga¬ 
low with the wide, rough stone chimney and the room, 
beside their own bedroom, which she had said would 
be their baby’s. 

She cried by herself in the little house; she cried 
not solely from her disappointment. With the war 
over, with its duties for her and its excitements ended, 
and she without a child, what was she to do? 

She felt that David and she were approaching the 
condition which surprised them at the end of their term 
in college. Again he had been doing double work at 
school and had given to his hard task his entire in- 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 


357 


terest and energy; he had finished the long grind of 
duty and he required contrast to it; he wanted to play. 
And Alice thought of Fidelia and she tried to be 
“light.” 

She went to the theater with him and got up supper 
parties. She had him take her out to dine and dance. 
She tried to be very gay but it felt false to herself. 
She did not really want to be light with him; she pre¬ 
ferred being serious and discussing and forming plans 
and talking over his work with him. 

“And he doesn’t need that now. He does it only to 
please me,” she realized. “But it would be all right, 
if I had a baby.” 

There was no baby; there were only he and she and 
they were very much as they had been when Fidelia 
had come. 

David did not need serious discussions; he wanted 
play; but he blamed himself, not Alice, for the dis¬ 
satisfaction he felt. He wanted a child and he held 
himself guilty for his childlessness. 

He recognized that there was no rational basis for 
blaming himself; but his father accused him. His 
father pronounced that God very likely was punishing 
him for his manner of life with Fidelia; since Fidelia 
and he had forbidden the children which God would 
have given, God was denying the child which David de¬ 
sired now. 

The idea angered David for its outrageous injustice 
to Alice; yet he could not help wondering if it might 
be so. It made him even more gentle when Alice cried. 

“You’re so good to me, David,” she whispered. 


358 


FIDELIA 


“I’m not good to you. You’re the good one. You 
stuck to me throughout all that deadly training and 
never a complaint from you for boarding-school food 
or heat or the dust or the dullness of it all. A smile 
for me every time and such dearness, Alice! ” 

Alice and he went to her father’s home for dinner on 
a Sunday. It was February and the lake was frozen as 
it had been seven years before; and up and down the 
shore rose white hummocks and hillocks of ice making 
miniature mountains and valleys like those which Fi¬ 
delia had visited on the morning she rose to see the sun¬ 
rise and he had followed her and they had become 
Titans together on the brink of Creation and they had 
played in the caves of the coast of Iceland fifty thou¬ 
sand years ago. 

Beyond lay the floe and it drifted slowly as it had 
on that night when Fidelia and he left the world to¬ 
gether, through the Seventh Gate, and on the Throne 
of Saturn sate. 

He saw the hotel and he thought of the gay suite 
where breakfast was brought to Fidelia and him and 
she sat in the sun with her hair over her shoulders. 

When they arrived at the house, they went up to her 
old room. In the next room, which now was called 
his, he found a letter which had been forwarded from 
the hotel where Fidelia and he had lived and at which 
he had registered Mr. Sothron’s address for mail which 
might arrive when he was in service. 

The postmark was White Falls, Iowa, and on the 
flap was engraved The Drovers' Bank . He tore it 
open and read: 


HAPPINESS—AND FEAR 359 

My Dear Mr. Herrick: 

A communication from Mrs. Fidelia Bolton, to-day re¬ 
ceived from England, bears information which may be of 
concern to you. Samuel Bolton, her husband, was wounded 
in an action near the Dendre in October and since has died 
in a hospital in London. 

Very truly yours, 

Edward Jessop. 

Looking up, David saw that Alice was in her own 
room, and he moved from sight of her. 

So Bolton was dead; that tall, vaunting man who 
had first been Fidelia’s husband and then, five years 
later, had drawn her to him again, was dead; he who 
had cooked that first camp supper with her, the best 
ever though it was burnt black, he was dead; he who 
boasted exultantly of his tremendous eleven days with 
her which “were days,” he was dead; and it was im¬ 
possible for David Herrick to slow his pulse of triumph 
over that. If he had won no more than mere survival 
itself, yet he was alive, Bolton was dead. 

But Fidelia—Fidelia Bolton, Mrs. Fidelia Bolton? 
“A communication . . . which may be of concern to 
you.” What did Edward Jessop mean by that; what 
had Fidelia written? “Of concern to you . . . Samuel 
Bolton, her husband . . . has died.” 

“No concern of mine,” David whispered to himself. 
“No concern of mine. She went to him; she wanted 
to go.” 

Alice was moving about in her room and he heard 
her; he saw her slight figure pass the doorway and he 
thrust his hand with the letter into his pocket. “It’s 





360 


FIDELIA 


going to bother her,” he thought. “It’s going to play 
the devil with her. She can’t help it.” 

Through several moments, he considered whether he 
could hide it from her altogether; but the letter had 
come to her home with the White Falls postmark; 
there might easily be mention of it; besides he knew 
he should tell her. 

He took his hand from his pocket and entered her 
room. 

“Fidelia’s husband is dead,” he said. “He was 
wounded near the Dendre and died in a hospital in 
London. Fidelia seems to have written Jessop, who 
used to be her guardian; he wrote me. Here’s the let¬ 
ter, Alice.” 

She took it, staring at him, and with it she sat down. 
“Fidelia’s free, you mean. I knew all along it must 
be. She wants to come back to you.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

HER CHIIyD 

T HE answer which David sent to White Falls 
stated that in case Mrs. Fidelia Bolton was 
without funds or otherwise needed assistance, 
he would be glad to communicate further with Mr. 
Jessop. In reply to this, Jessop wrote that Mrs. Bol¬ 
ton’s principal in care of the Drovers’ Bank was intact 
and she regularly received income which undoubtedly 
was ample for her requirements whether or not she 
later shared in her husband’s estate. 

This ended the correspondence. When it stopped, 
Fidelia apparently was still in England; but where was 
she the next week? And the week after that? And 
on the following days? The doubt hung over Alice, 
however David tried to drive it away. 

He succeeded best by plunging into business with 
great energy and real interest. He went to work in a 
shippers’ organization which handled the sales of many 
manufactured products by a method which consider¬ 
ably lowered costs to every one and consequently per¬ 
formed a valuable and satisfying service. 

His work required not only selling ability but the 
exercise of judgment and the use of a sound knowledge 
of economics. Since he got into the work through a 
friend at Fort Sill, many of his companions in the 
office were from the School of Fire. He often brought 
a couple of them home for dinner and they all talked 
out their problems with Alice. 

361 




362 


FIDELIA 


After she went with David to dine at the home of 
the president of the company, her husband told her: 
“The president says he ought to have you on salary. 
He says now he knows why I’m doing well.” 

Alice quivered with joy; but she was not undeceived 
to believe that business, however she shared it with 
him, was enough to make him happy. 

What he wanted, she had never known; and it was 
not describable. It was, indeed, an unreality which 
he might never have learned, if Fidelia had not come. 

It was no mere lightness or gayness or joyfulness; 
it was nothing less than escape from realities to the 
remotenesses and fastness of the crystal valley of the 
Titans, to the Throne of Saturn, through the Seventh 
Gate, and to the brink of Creation on the dawn of 
Day. 

David said to himself, “There’s a lot of pagan in 
me. Mother knew it when she came to see I should 
never have gone into the ministry. I want to get 
away from the world but not in father’s way; he wants 
to lament and pray. I want to play.” 

The year had turned to February again, the month 
of opposite anniversaries; the month when Fidelia had 
appeared at college and when Alice had married David 
and when the news of Bolton’s death had come. 
David, thinking of this and recollecting Fidelia’s su¬ 
perstitions, held it in his mind as a month when some¬ 
thing was likely to happen; and it was upon a morning 
in the second week of February that a boy brought to 
his desk the card of Edward Jessop. 

David knew at once that he brought word of 


HER CHILD 


363 


Fidelia; and the word was that Fidelia lived no more. 
Her end had come in England and after a manner like 
her; she had searched for hours on the Devon moor, 
in a winter rain, for a child who was lost. When she 
found the child, she had carried her two miles and 
when she reached shelter exhausted, Fidelia had neg¬ 
lected to change her own wet clothes quickly and had 
died of influenza on the second day. 

Mr. Jessop related this to David in his office where 
they were shut in alone. “Her child/’ Mr. Jessop 
seemed to say, although David did not hear it clearly. 
He asked, 

“Whose child, did you say?” 

Now Mr. Jessop said distinctly, “Her child.” 

Hers and Bolton’s, that must mean! So she had 
borne a child to Bolton! But Mr. Jessop said, “Her 
child and yours, Herrick. The little girl was born in 
England on the twenty-ninth of May in the spring 
after she left you. There is no doubt whatever that 
she is your child for Fidelia never went back to Bolton. 
Her mother named her Sarah, after your mother, she 
says.” 

David could not follow the words. He had a child; 
there was a little girl, who was Fidelia’s and his, who 
was born on May 29th. His mind reckoned for him, 
without his controlling it, “Yes; it was September that 
time we were still at the hotel and she’d written to 
Flora Bolton and got no answer so she thought it 
would be all right to have a child. Yes, that’s what 
she told me that night before she left.” 

His child! He asked, “Did the child live?” 

“Yes.” 




364 


FIDELIA 


“Fidelia—her mother,” David repeated Jessop’s 
words and how strange it was to say, “named her Sarah 
after my mother, she says. That’s what you said, 
‘She says.’ What did you mean by that ‘she says/ 
if she is dead?” 

“She said it in her diary. It appears that she kept 
since she was a child a most remarkably detailed 
diary. . . .” 

The volumes of it were among the effects given to 
Jessop upon his arrival, after he had been sent for; 
he had read portions of it. 

Fidelia not only had not gone back to Bolton but 
she had lost almost all impulse to return to him before 
she landed in England. “Except for a time when she 
must have been in tremendous upheaval on account of 
criticisms from your father and your family’s refusal 
to take money from you while she was your wife,” 
Jessop said, “and because of other agitations over 
‘Alice’ and you, she undoubtedly remained in love with 
you. No one, reading her diary, could possibly doubt 
it.” 

She had finally decided not to return to Bolton even 
before she discovered, as she did soon after reaching 
England, that she was to have a child. She did not 
know then what to do. 

“It is evident,” said Jessop, “that she drifted, wait¬ 
ing for events; that was the sort of thing she always 
did.” 

Jessop related, “When the child was born she was 
ecstatic. She thought it gave her right to go back to 
you . . . then she was afraid to.” 

“Afraid?” said David. 


HER CHILD 


365 


“Her marriage to you was annulled; she was Bol¬ 
ton s wife, she had your child. ... I knew nothing 
of this myself. I merely had attended to the annul¬ 
ment proceedings and since had been forwarding her 
income, addressing Mrs. Fidelia Bolton through a Lon¬ 
don bank. I supposed she was living with him when 
he was in England, though I might have suspected dif¬ 
ferently from the fact that often she acknowledged 
my letters from Devon. The baby was born at 
Torquay. . . . Fidelia was delighted with her; she 
seemed to have hoped for a boy but she was delighted 
with the little girl.’’ 

“What is she like?” asked David. “Where is she?” 

“At my hotel with Mrs. Jessop.” 

“Here?” cried David. “Here?” 

Alice heard from David that he was coming home at 
noon. Mr. Jessop was here with news that Fidelia 
had died in England, David had said and had added 
he had much more to tell her. Fidelia was dead. It 
was a statement which bore to Alice no reality. It 
was wholly different from the news which had come 
that Bolton was dead. Never had he been more than a 
name and a statement of fact when he lived; it re¬ 
quired nothing more than another statement of fact 
to let you know that he was dead. But Fidelia bore 
the flower of life itself; to think of Fidelia was to think 
of color, warmth and stir; no one could think of 
Fidelia, dead. 

There was a mistake, Alice was sure. There had 
been a mistake years ago about Bolton, who had had 
no such life as Fidelia, yet who was alive when people 



366 


FIDELIA 


said he was dead. There was a mistake; and when 
David drove to the door and came up from the car 
with a child of four years in his arms, Alice knew the 
mistake for what it was. Fidelia lived but she was 
a child again. 

She had clear, white skin and dark, red hair and 
large brown eyes and red lips and a lovely, provoking 
nose like Fidelia’s; and, her arm about David’s neck, 
she clung as only a child of Fidelia’s could. She was 
vivid and warm and she loved life. 

He carried her into the house, and with her in his 
arms he turned to his wife. ‘She’s my child, Alice,” 
he said. “I’m her father.” 

“Of course, you’re her father,” Alice said. “Fidelia, 
she bore your child, too.” 

Rays of the rising sun shone into the bedroom win¬ 
dow and although Alice had lain awake nearly all the 
night, the light at once aroused her. Sunrise in win¬ 
ter; and as she lay, facing it, she remembered the 
winter sunrise when she lay in bed while Fidelia and 
David were on the shore alone. But now he was be¬ 
side her; he was her husband. 

She turned; he was not beside her; and at once she 
knew where he would be and she remembered what 
that was which weighted her heart. Fidelia’s child 
and his was asleep in the next room where the first of 
her children, and his, was to sleep. He had gone 
there. 

Alice rose and crossed to the door. 

He was standing within the baby’s room and near 
her bed; he did not hear his wife, as he gazed at his 


HER CHILD 


367 


baby, asleep. The little girl slept deeply with her hair 
tousled and her long lashes in dark, orderly line upon 
the clear, living pink of her cheek. One forearm was 
uncovered, a lovely, round perfect little arm and hand. 

The sun stole into the room and now cast a bold 
shaft across the baby’s bed and the child seemed to 
feel it, though it did not touch her till she turned her 
head so that the sun glowed bronze and gold red upon 
her hair, as upon that morning in class, it had made 
glorious the hair of her mother. 

Alice caught her breath and David heard her. He 
stepped back to her and clasped her hand. “Did you 
see?” he whispered. 

“Yes. She goes to sunshine like her mother.” 

“She loved the sun,” David said. “Just sun and 
water and things like that made her happy. Sarah,” 
he said, “she’ll be the same.” 

“Sarah!” Alice repeated. “She’s no Sarah, David. 
She’s Fidelia, Fidelia! Every time you look at her, 
every time you hear her voice, you’ll think it, and so 
will I. She’s Fidelia! We’ll say it, and call her 
Fidelia from now on.” 

“Alice, can you bear to?” 

“Bear it, my boy!—Fidelia, the only Fidelia who 
ever could take you away from me, is gone, David; 
and Fidelia who will hold us together is come.” 

He closed his wife in his arms. 

“No wife in the world could love her as you, Alice.” 

He released her and stepped to the bed again. 
“You pretty little pagan,” he said within himself. 
“You and I, we’ll play!” 

Fie went with Alice to their room where was left a 




368 FIDELIA 

trunk of Fidelia’s clothes and the many volumes of 
her diary. 

“We’ll burn these to-day,” David decided about the 
books. “She never wanted any one to read them.” 

He had in his hand the first book which Fidelia had 
started, when she was ten, for the confiding of her 
thoughts. 

“I’m glad I’ve seen them though,” Alice said. “In 
a way, you see, she had to make them do for a mother. 
But she’ll not have to, David! ” 


THE END 


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